Who can tell thy warriors' grief,

Maddening o'er that long adieu? Woman's love, and friendship's zeal, Dear as both have been to meWhat are they to all I feel,

With a soldier's faith for thee?

Idol of the soldier's soul !

First in fight, but mightiest now; Many could a world control;

Thee alone no doom can bow. By thy side for years I dared

Death; and envied those who fell, When their dying shout was heard,

Blessing him they served so well.*
Would that I were cold with those,
Since this hour I live to see;
When the doubts of coward foes

Scarce dare trust a man with thee,
Dreading each should set thee free!
Oh! although in dungeons pent,
All their chains were light to me,
Gazing on thy soul unbent.
Would the sycophants of him

Now so deaf to duty's prayer,
Were his borrow'd glories dim,

In his native darkness share? Were that world this hour his own, All thou calmly dost resign, Could he purchase with that throne Hearts like those which still are thine? My chief, my king, my friend, adieu ! Never did I droop before; Never to my sovereign sue, As his foes I now implore:

All I ask is to divide

Every peril he must brave;

Sharing by the hero's side

His fall, his exile, and his grave.

Like lava roll'd thy stream of blood,
And swept down empires with its flood;
Earth rock'd beneath thee to her base,
As thou didst lighten through all space;
And the shorn Sun grew dim in air,
And set while thou wert dwelling there
Before thee rose, and with thee grew,
A rainbow of the loveliest hue,
Of three bright colours, each divine,'
And fit for that celestial sign;
For Freedom's hand had blended them,
Like tints in an immortal gem.

One tint was of the sunbeam's dyes;
One, the blue depth of Seraph's eyes;
One, the pure Spirit's veil of white
Had robed in radiance of its light:
The three so mingled did beseem

The texture of a heavenly dream.

Star of the brave! thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail !
But, O thou Rainbow of the free!
Our tears and blood must flow for thee.
When thy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.

And Freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead;
For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array;
And soon, O Goddess! may we be
For evermore with them or thee!

NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL. FROM THE FRENCH.

HONOUR.'

FROM THE FRENCH.

STAR of the brave !-whose beam hath shed
Such glory o'er the quick and dead—
Thou radiant and adored deceit,

Which millions rush'd in arms to greet,——
Wild meteor of immortal birth;
Why rise in Heaven to set on Earth?
Souls of slain heroes form'd thy rays;
Eternity flash'd through thy blaze;
The music of thy martial sphere
Was fame on high and honour here;
And thy light broke on human eyes,
Like a volcano of the skies.

At Waterloo, one man was seen whose left arm was shattered by a cannon-ball, to wrench it off with the other, and throwing it up in the air, exclaimed to his comrades, "Vive TEmpereur, jusqu'à la mort!" There were many other instances of the like. This, however, you may depead on as true-Private Letter from Brussels.

I have warr'd with a world which vanquish'd me only

When the meteor of conquest allured me too far; I have coped with the nations which dread me

thus lonely,

The last single captive to millions in war.

Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadeni crown'd me,

I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth; But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,

Decay'd in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth.
Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted
In strife with the storm, when their battles were

won:

Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted,

Had still soar'd with eyes fix'd on victory's sun!

The tricolour.

TO THYRZA.

WITHOUT a stone to mark the spot,
And say, what Truth might well have said,
By all, save one, perchance forgot,

Ah! wherefore art thou lowly laid?

By many a shore and many a sea
Divided, yet beloved in vain ;
The past, the future fled to thee,

To bid us meet-no-ne'er again!
Could this have been-a word, a look,
That softly said, 'We part in peace,'
Had taught my bosom how to brook,
With fainter sighs, thy soul's release.
And didst thou not, since Death for thee
Prepared a light and pangless dart,
Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see,

Who held, and holds thee in his heart?
Oh! who like him had watch'd thee here
Or sadly mark'd thy glazing eye,
In that dread hour ere death appear,
When silent sorrow fears to sigh,
Till all was past? But when no more
'Twas thine to reck of human woe,
Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er,

Had flow'd as fast-as now they flow.
Shall they not flow, when many a day
In these, to me, deserted towers,
Ere call'd but for a time away,
Affection's mingling tears were ours?
Ours too the glance none saw beside

The smile none else might understand; The whisper'd thoughts of hearts allied, The pressure of the thrilling hand;

The kiss, so guiltless and refined,

That Love each warmer wish forbore; Those eyes proclaim'd so pure a mind, Ev'n passion blush'd to plead for more. The tone, that taught me to rejoice,

When prone, unlike thee, to repine; The song, celestial from thy voice,

But sweet to me from none but thine;

The pledge we wore-I wear it still,

But where is thine?-Ah! where art thou? Oft have I borne the weight of ill,

But never bent beneath till now!
Well hast thou left in life's best bloom
The cup of woe for me to drain.
If rest alone be in the tomb,

I would not wish thee here again.
But if in worlds more blest than this
Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere,
Impart some portion of thy bliss,

To wean me from mine anguish here.
Teach me too early taught by thee!
To bear, forgiving and forgiven:
On earth thy love was such to me;

It fain would form my hope in heaven!

AWAY, AWAY, YE NOTES OF WOE!
AWAY, away, ye notes of woe!

Be silent, thou once soothing strain,
Or I must flee from hence-for, oh!
I dare not trust those sounds again.
To me they speak of brighter days—
But lull the chords, for now, alas!
I must not think, I may not gaze,
On what I am-on what I was.

The voice that made those sounds more sweet
Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled;
And now their softest notes repeat

A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead! Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee, Beloved dust; since dust thou art; And all that once was harmony

Is worse than discord to my heart.

'Tis silent all !-but on my ear

The well-remember'd echoes thrill;
I hear a voice I would not hear,

A voice that now might well be still:
Yet oft my doubting soul 'twill shake,
Ev'n slumber owns its gentle tone,
Till consciousness will vainly wake
To listen, though the dream be flown.

Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep,
Thou art but now a lovely dream;
A star that trembled o'er the deep,
Then turn'd from earth its tender beam.
But he who through life's dreary way
Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath,
Will long lament the vanish'd ray

That scatter'd gladness o'er his path.

ONE STRUGGLE MORE, AND I AM
FREE.

ONE struggle more, and I am free
From pangs that rend my heart in twain;
One last long sigh to love and thee,
Then back to busy life again.
It suits me well to mingle now
With things that never pleased
Though every joy is fled below,

before :

What future grief can touch me more?
Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;
Man was not form'd to live alone :
I'll be that light, unmeaning thing

That smiles with all, and weeps with none. It was not thus in days more dear,

It never would have been, but thou Hast fled, and left me lonely here; Thou'rt nothing-all are nothing now. In vain my lyre would lightly breathe! The smile that sorrow fain would wear But mocks the woe that lurks beneath, Like roses o'er a sepulchre. Though gay companions o'er the bowl Dispel awhile the sense of ill; Though pleasure fires the maddening soul, The heart,-the heart is lonely still! On many a lone and lovely night

It soothed to gaze upon the sky;
For then I deem'd the heavenly light
Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye:
And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,
When sailing o'er the gean wave,
'Now Thyrza gazes on that moon'
Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!
When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed,
And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins,
'Tis comfort still,' I faintly said,

That Thyrza cannot know my pains ;'
Like freedom to the time-worn slave,
A boon 'tis idle then to give,
Relenting Nature vainly gave
My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!
My Thyrza's pledge in better days,

When love and life alike were new!
How different now thou meet'st my gaze!
How tinged by time with sorrow's hue!
The heart that gave itself with thee
Is silent-ah, were mine as still!
Though cold as e'en the dead can be,
It feels, it sickens with the chill.

Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token! Though painful, welcome to my breast! Still, still preserve that love unbroken,

Or break the heart to which thou'rt press'd. Time tempers love, but not removes,

More hallow'd when its hope is fled : Oh! what are thousand living loves To that which cannot quit the dead?

EUTHANASIA.

WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring
The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,
Oblivion! may thy languid wing

Wave gently o'er my dying bed!
No band of friends or heirs be there,
To weep, or wish, the coming blow;
No maiden with dishevell'd hair,

To feel, or feign, decorous woe.
But silent let me sink to earth,

With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a tear. Yet Love, if Love in such an hour

Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power

In her who lives, and him who dies. "Twere sweet, my Psyche, to the last Thy features still serene to see: Forgetful of its struggles past,

E'en Pain itself should smile on thee.

But vain the wish-for Beauty still

Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And women's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death.

Then lonely be my latest hour,

Without regret, without a groan;

For thousands Death hath ceased to lower, And pain been transient or unknown. 'Ay, but to die, and go,' alas!

Where all have gone, and all must go!
To be the nothing that I was

Ere born to life and living woe!
Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
"Tis something better not to be.

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 pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd

Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd 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 follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last ;

Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
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.

IF SOMETIMES IN THE HAUNTS OF MEN.

IF sometimes in the haunts of men

Thine image from my breast may fade, The lonely hour presents again

The semblance of thy gentle shade: And now that sad and silent hour Thus much of thee can still restore, And sorrow unobserved may pour

The plaint she dare not speak before.
Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile

I waste one thought I owe to thee,
And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile,
Unfaithful to thy memory!
Nor deem that memory less dear,
That then I seem not to repine;

I would not fools should overhear
One sigh that should be wholly thine.

If not the goblet pass unquaff'd,
It is not drain'd to banish care;
The cup must hold a deadlier draught,
That brings a Lethe for despair.
And could Oblivion set my soul

From all her troubled visions free,
I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl
That drown'd a single thought of thee.
For wert thou vanish'd from my mind,
Where could my vacant bosom turn?
And who would then remain behind

To honour thine abandon'd Urn?
No, no-it is my sorrow's pride

That last dear duty to fulfil;
Though all the world forget beside,
'Tis meet that I remember still.
For well I know, that such had been
Thy gentle care for him, who now
Unmourn'd shall quit this mortal scene,
Where none regarded him but thou:
And, oh! I feel in that was given

A blessing never meant for me;
Thou wert too like a dream of heaven
For earthly Love to merit thee.

To this the soldier lent his kindling match,
To this the peasant gave his cottage thatch,
To this the merchant flung his hoarded store,
The prince his hall-and Moscow was no more!
Sublimest of volcanos! Etna's flame

Pales before thine, and quenchless Hecla's tame;
Vesuvius shows his blaze, an usual sight
For gaping tourists, from his hackney'd height
Thou stand'st alone unrivall'd, till the fire
To come, in which all empires shall expire.

Thou other element! as strong and stern,
To teach a lesson conquerors will not learn!-
Whose icy wing flapp'd o'er the faltering foe,
Till fell a hero with each flake of snow;
How did thy numbing beak and silent fang
Pierce, till hosts perish'd with a single pang!
In vain shall Seine look up along his banks
For the gay thousands of his dashing ranks!
In vain shall France recall beneath her vines
Her youth-their blood flows faster than her
wines ;

Or stagnant in their human ice remains
In frozen mummies on the Polar plains.
In vain will Italy's broad sun awaken
Her offspring chill'd; its beams are now forsaken.
Of all the trophies gather'd from the war,
What shall return? the conqueror's broken car!
The conqueror's yet unbroken heart! Again
The horn of Roland sounds, and not in vain.
Lutzen, where fell the Swede of victory,
Beholds him conquer, but, alas! not die:
Dresden surveys three despots fly once more
Before their sovereign,--sovereign as before;
But there exhausted Fortune quits the field,
And Leipsic's treason bids the unvanquish'd
The Saxon jackal leaves the lion's side yield.
To turn the bear's, and wolf's, and fox's guide;
And backward to the den of his despair
The forest monarch shrinks, but finds no lair!

:

arch!

Oh, bloody and most bootless Waterloo!
Which proves how fools may have their fortune
Won half by blunder, half by treachery: [too,
Oh, dull Saint Helen! with thy gaoler nigh
Hear! hear Prometheus from his rock appeal*
To earth, air, ocean, all that felt or feel
His power and glory, all who yet shall hear
A name eternal as the rolling year;

I refer the reader to the first address of Prometheus in Echylus, when he was left alone by his attendants, ani be

fore the arrival of the chorus of Sea-nymphs.

He teaches them the lesson taught so long,
So oft, so vainly-learn to do no wrong!
A single step into the right had made
This man the Washington of worlds betray'd;
A single step into the wrong has given
His name a doubt to all the winds of heaven;
The reed of Fortune, and of thrones the rod,
Of Fame the Moloch or the demigod ;
His country's Cæsar, Europe's Hannibal,
Without their decent dignity of fall.
Yet Vanity herself had better taught
A surer path even to the fame he sought,
By pointing out on history's fruitless page
Ten thousand conquerors for a single sage.
While Franklin's quiet memory climbs to heaven,
Calming the lightning which he thence hath
riven,

Or drawing from the no less kindled earth
Freedom and peace to that which boasts his birth;
While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er
Shall sink while there's an echo left to air:
While even the Spaniard's thirst of gold and war
Forgets Pizarro to shout Bolivar !

Alas! why must the same Atlantic wave
Which wafted freedom gird a tyrant's grave-
The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave,
Who burst the chains of millions to renew
The very fetters which his arm broke through,
And crush'd the rights of Europe and his own,
To flit between a dungeon and a throne?

One common cause makes myriads of one breast,
Slaves of the East, or helots of the West :
On Andes' and on Athos' peaks unfurl'd,
The self-same standard streams o'er either
world:

The Athenian wears again Harmodius' sword;
The Chili chief abjures his foreign lord;
The Spartan knows himself once more a Greek,
Young Freedom plumes the crest of each
cacique;

Debating despots, hemm'd on either shore,
Shrink vainly from the roused Atlantic's roar;
Through Calpe's strait the rolling tides advance,
Sweep slightly by the half-tamed land of France,
Dash o'er the old Spaniard's cradle, and would
Unite Ausonia to the mighty main :
But driven from thence a while, yet not for aye,
Break o'er th' gean, mindful of the day

[fain