But no-that last indignity

Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye,
All feelings seemingly subdued,

In deep disdain were half renew'd,
When headsman's hands prepared to bind
Those eyes which would not brook such blind;
As if they dared not look on death.
"No-yours my forfeit blood and breath-
'These hands are chain'd, but let me die
At least with an unshackled eye-
Strike:"-and as the word he said,
Upon the block he bow'd his head;
These the last accents Hugo spoke :
"Strike:"-and flashing fell the stroke-
Roll'd the head-and, gushing, sunk
Back the stain'd and heaving trunk,
In the dust, which each deep vein
Slaked with its ensanguined rain;
His eyes and lips a moment quiver,
Convulsed and quick-then fix for ever.
He died, as erring man should die,
Without display, without parade;
Meekly had he bow'd and pray'd,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
And while before the prior kneeling,
His heart was wean'd from earthly feeling;
His wrathful sire-his paramour-

What were they in such an hour?

No more reproach-no more despair;

No thought but heaven-no word but prayor
Save the few which from him broke,

When, bared to meet the headsman's stroke,
He claim'd to die with eyes unbound,
His sole adieu to those around.

XVIII.

Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's bosom held his breath:
But yet, afar, from man to man,
A cold electric shiver ran,

As down the deadly blow descended
On him whose life and love thus ended
And, with a hushing sound compress'd,
A sigh shrunk back on every breast;
But no more thrilling noise rose there,
Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock,
Save one-what cleaves the silent air
So madly shrill-so passing wild?
That, as a mother's o'er her child,
Done to death by sudden blow,
To the sky these accents go,
Like a soul's in endless woe.

Through Azo's palace-lattice driven,
That horrid voice ascends to heaven,
And every eye is turn'd thereon;
But sound and sight alike are gone!
It was a woman's shriek-and ne'er
In madlier accents rose despair;
And those who heard it, as it past,
In mercy wish'd it were the last.

ΧΙΧ.

Hugo is fallen; and from that hour
No more in palace, hall, or bower,
Was Parisina heard or seen:

Her name as if she ne'er had been-
Was banish'd from each lip and ear,
Like words of wantonness or fear;
And from Prince Azo's voice, by none
Was mention heard of wife or son;
No tomb-no memory had they;
Theirs was unconsecrated clay;
At least the knight's who died that day.
But Parisina's fate lies hid

Like dust beneath the coffin-lid:
Whether in convent she abode,

And won to heaven her dreary road,
By blighted and remorseful years
Of scourge and fast, and sleepless tears;
Or if she fell by bowl or steel,

For that dark love she dared to feel;

Or if, upon the moment smote,

She died by tortures less remote;

Like him she saw upon the block,

With heart that shared the headsman's shock,

In quicken'd brokenness that came,

In pity, o'er her shatter'd frame,

None knew-and none can ever know:

But whatsoe'er its end below,

Her life began and closed in woe!

XX.

And Azo found another bride,
And goodly sons grew by his side;
But none so lovely and so brave
As him who wither'd in the grave;
Or if they were on his cold eye
Their growth but glanced unheeded by,
Or noticed with a smother'd sigh.

But never tear his cheek descended,

And never smile his brow unbended;

And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought
The intersected lines of thought;
Those furrows which the burning share

Of Sorrow ploughs untimely there;

Scars of the lacerating mind

Which the Soul's war doth leave behind.
He was past all mirth or woe:
Nothing more remain'd below
But sleepless nights and heavy days,
A mind all dead to scorn or praise,
A heart which shunn'd itself-and yet
That would not yield-nor could forget,
Which, when it least appear'd to melt,
Intently thought-intensely felt:
The deepest ice which ever froze
Can only o'er the surface close-
The living stream lies quick below,
And flows-and cannot cease to flow.
Still was his sealed-up bosom haunted
By thoughts which nature had implanted;
Too deeply rooted thence to vanish,
Howe'er our stifled fears we banish;
When, struggling as they rise to start,
We check those waters of the heart,
They are not dried-those tears unshed,
But flow back to the fountain-head,
And resting in their spring more pure,
For ever in its depth endure,
Unseen, unwept, but uncongeal'd,
And cherish'd most where least reveal'd.
With inward starts of feeling left,
To throb o'er those of life bereft;
Without the power to fill again
The desert gap which made his pain;
Without the hope to meet them where
United souls shall gladness share,
With all the consciousness that he
Had only pass'd a just decree;

That they had wrought their doom of ill;
Yet Azo's age was wretched still.
The tainted branches of the tree,

If lopp'd with care, a strength may give
By which the rest shall bloom and live
All greenly fresh and wildly free:
But if the lightning, in its wrath,
The waving boughs with fury scath,
The massy trunk the ruin feels,
And never more a leaf reveals.

But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining, !
Like cliffs, which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been."
COLERIDGE's Christabel

FARE thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well;

Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

Would that breast were bared before thes
Where thy head so oft hath lain,
While that placid sleep came o'er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again :

Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show !
Then thou wouldst at last discover
"Twas not well to spurn it so.

Though the world for this commend thee-
Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe:

Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not:
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away;

Still thine own its life retaineth

Still must mine, though bleeding, beat;
And the undying thought which paineth
Is-that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widow'd bed.

And when thou wouldst solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!"
Though his care she must forego?

When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press'd,
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,
Think of him thy love had bless'd!

Should her lineaments resemble
Those thou never more mayst see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know ;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Whither, yet with thee they go.
Every feeling hath been shaken;
Pride, which not a world could bow,
Bows to thee-by thee forsaken,
Even my soul forsakes me now :

But 'tis done-all words are idle-
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.
Fare thee well!-thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie.

Sear'd in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die.

March 17, 1996

A SKETCH.

"Honest-honest Iago !

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee."

SHAKSPEARE

BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
Next for some gracious service unexpress'd,
And from its wages only to be guess'd-
Raised from the toilette to the table,-where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair.
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd,
She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd.
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lic-
The genial confidante, and general spy-
Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess-
An only infant's earliest governess!

She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself by teaching, learn'd to spell.