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; .

Even Pain itself should smile on thee. But vain the wish for Beauty still

Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath, And woman'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. 66 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.

MARINO FALIERO'S IMPRECATION AGAINST

VENICE. I speak to Time and to Eternity, Of which I grow a portion, not to man. Ye elements ! in which to be resolved I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit Upon you! Ye blue waves ! which bore my banner, Ye winds ! which fluttered o'er as if you loved it, And filled my swelling sails as they were wafted To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth, Which I have bled for, and thou foreign earth, Which drank this willing blood from many a wound ! Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but Reek up to heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it! Thou sun! which shinest on these things, and Thou ! Who kindlest and who quenchest suns ! -Attest! I am not innocent_but are these guiltless ? I perish, but not unavenged; far ages Float up from the abyss of time to be, And show these eyes, before they close, the doom Of this proud city, and I leave my curse On her and hers for ever !_Yes, the hours Are silently engendering of the day, When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark, Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield Unto a bastard Attila, without Shedding so much blood in her last defence As these old veins, oft drained in shielding her, Shall pour in sacrifice. She shall be bought And sold, and be an appanage to those Who shall despise her! She shall stoop to be

A province for an empire, petty town
In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, pandars for a people !
Then, when the Hebrew's in thy palaces,
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his !
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity!
Then when the few who still retain a wreck
Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn
Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' Vice-gerent,
Even in the palace where they swayed as sovereigns,
Even in the palace where they slew their sovereign,
Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung
From an adultress boastful of her guilt
With some large gondolier or foreign soldier,
Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph
To the third spurious generation ;-when
Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
Slaves turned o'er to the vanquished by the victors;
Despised by cowards for greater cowardice,
And scorned even by the vicious for such vices
As in the monstrous grasp of their conception
Defy all codes to image or to name them;
Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom,
All thine inheritance shall be her shame
Entailed on thy less virtuous daughters, grown .
A wider proverb for worse prostitution ;-
When all the ills of conquer'd states shall cling thee :
Vice without splendour; sin without relief
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er,
But in its stead coarse lusts of habitude,
Prurient, yet passionless, cold studied lewdness,

Depraving Nature's frailty to an art;
When these and more are heavy on thee, when
Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without pleasure,
Youth without honour, age without respect,
Meanness and weakness, and a sense of woe
'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and darest not

murmur,
Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts,
Then, in the last gasp of thine agony,
Amidst thy many murders think of mine !
Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes !
Gehenna of the waters ! thou sea Sodom !
Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods !
Thee and thy serpent seed !
[Here the Doge turns, and addresses the executioner.

Slave, do thine office ! Strike as I struck the foe! Stike as I would Have struck those tyrants ! Strike deep as my curse ! Strike and but once ! [The Doge throws himself upon his knees, and as the

executioner raises his sword the scene closes.

FAREWELL.

Farewell ! if ever fondest prayer

For others' weal avail'd on high, Mine will not be lost in air,

But waft thy name beyond the sky. "Twere vain to speak to weep—to sigh:

Oh! more than tears of blood can tell, When wrung from guilt's expiring eye,

Are in that word_Farewell !_Farewell !

These lips are mute, these eyes are dry ;

But in my breast, and in my brain,

• Awake the pangs that pass not by,

The thought that ne'er shall sleep again. My soul nor deigns nor dares complain,

Though grief and passion there rebel : I only know we loved in vain

I only feelFarewell ! Farewell !

BEAUTIFUL FEMALES SLEEPING. There was deep silence in the chamber : dim

And distant from each other burned the lights, And slumber hover'd o'er each lovely limb

Of the fair occupants : if there be sprites, They would have walked there in their spriteliest trim, .

By way of change from their sepulchral sites, And show themselves as ghosts of better taste Than haunting some old ruin or wild waste. Many and beautiful lay those around,

Like flowers of different hue and clime and root,, In some exotic garden sometimes found,

With cost, and care, and warmth induced to shoot. One with her auburn tresses lightly bound,

And fair brows gently drooping, as the fruit
Nods from the tree, was slumbering with soft breath
And lips apart, which showed the pearls beneath.
One with her flushed cheek laid on her white arm,

And raven ringlets gathered in dark crowd
Above her brow, lay dreaming soft and warm ;

And smiling through her dream, as through a cloud The moon breaks, half-unveil'd each further charm,

As, slightly stirring in her snowy shroud,
Her beauties seized the unconscious hour of night
All bashfully to struggle into light.