NATURE TO THE LAST. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 175-184.) My Pilgrim's shrine is won, And he and I must part, -so let it be ! Yet once more let us look upon the sea. Those waves, we follow'd on till the dark Euxine roll'd Upon the blue Symplegades; long years Long, though not very many, since have done Their work on both; some suffering and some tears Have left us nearly where we had begun: Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, That I might all forget the human race, Accord me such a being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! - 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, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray 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 And monarchs tremble in their capitals, These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Dark-heaving; — boundless, endless, and sublime - Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime 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 Were a delight; and if the freshening sea And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane — as I do here. "SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY." SHE walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; One shade the more, one ray the less, Or softly lightens o'er her face; And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent! "OH! SNATCH'D AWAY." OH! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom, Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And oft by yon blue gushing stream Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead. Away! we know that tears are vain, That death nor heeds nor hears distress: Will this unteach us to complain? Or make one mourner weep the less? And thou-who tell'st me to forget, SONG OF SAUL. WARRIORS and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path: Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, |