Might shock a connoisseur; but when combined At least of those whose eyes are in their hearts. Steel Barons, molten the next generation To silken rows of gay and garter'd Earls, Whose drapery hints we may admire them freely. Were there, with brows that did not much invite The accused to think their Lordships would determine His cause by leaning much from might to right; Bishops who had not left a single sermon ; Attorneys-General, awful to the sight, As hinting more (unless our judgments warp us) And iron time ere Lead had ta'en the lead; But ever and anon, to soothe your vision H There rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian, Or wilder group of savage Salvatore's*; There danced Albano's boys, and here the sea shone In Vernet's ocean lights; and there the stories Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted His brush with all the blood of all the sainted. There sweetly spread a landscape of Loraine; Bronzed o'er some lean and stoic Anchorite :- Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight: His bell-mouthed goblet makes me feel quite Danish Or Dutch with thirst-What ho! a flask of Rhenish. OCEAN. Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, In deeming such inhabit many a spot? There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, *Salvator Rosa. From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet can not 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 The armaments which thunder-strike the walls Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Thy waters wasted them 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' playTime 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, Dark heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here. My task is done-my song hath ceased--my theme Has died into an echo; it is fit The spell should break of this protracted dream. The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath lit My midnight lamp-and what is writ, is writWould it were worthier! but I am not now That which I have been-and my visions flit Less palpably before me—and the glow Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering, faint, and low. PARISINA'S MEETING WITH HER LOVER. And what unto them is the world beside, Of aught around, above, beneath; They only for each other breathe; The hearts which feel its fiery sway: Alas! we must awake before We know such vision comes no more. PATRIOT MARTYRS. They never fail who die In a great cause: the block may soak their gore; But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts Which overpower all others, and conduct |