And striven with thy masters. Get thee

hence!

Spirit. Mortal! thine hour is come--
Away! I say.

Man. I knew, and know my hour is
come, but not

To render up my soul to such as thee: Away! I'll die as I have lived-alone. Spirit. Then I must summon up my brethren.-Rise!

[Other Spirits rise up. Abbot. Avaunt! ye evil ones! Avaunt! I say;

Ye have no power where piety hath power,

And I do charge ye in the name---
Spirit.
Old man!
We know ourselves, our mission, and
thine order;

Waste not thy holy words on idle uses,
It were in vain: this man is forfeited.
Once more I summon him-Away!
Away!

Man. I do defy ye,-though I feel my soul

Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye; Nor will I hence, while I have earthly

breath

To breathe my scorn upon ye-earthly strength

To wrestle, though with spirits; what ye take

Shall be ta'en limb by limb.
Spirit.

Reluctant mortal! Is this the Magian who would so pervade The world invisible, and make himself Almost our equal? Can it be that thou Art thus in love with life? the very life Which made thee wretched!

Man. Thou false fiend, thou liest ! My life is in its last hour,-that I know, Nor would redeem a moment of that hour;

I do not combat against death, but thee And thy surrounding angels; my past power,

Was purchased by no compact with thy crew,

But by superior science-penance, daring,

And length of watching, strength of mind, and skill

In knowledge of our fathers-when the earth

Saw men and spirits walking side by side,

And gave ye no supremacy: I stand Upon my strength-I do defy-denySpurn back, and scorn ye !—

Man. What are they to such as thee? Must crimes be punish'd but by other crimes, Thell!

And greater criminals?-Back to thy Thou hast no power upon me, that I feel; [know:

Thou never shalt possess me, that I What I have done is done; I bear within A torture which could nothing gain from thine:

The mind which is immortal makes itself Requital for its good or evil thoughts,— Is its own origin of ill and end

And its own place and time: its innate

sense,

When stripp'd of this mortality, derives No color from the fleeting things without,

But is absorb'd in sufferance or in joy, Born from the knowledge of its own desert.

Thou didst not tempt me, and thou couldst not tenipt me;

I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy

prey

But was my own destroyer and will be My own hereafter.-Back, ye baffled fiends!

The hand of death is on me-but not yours! [The Demons disappear. Abbot. Alas! how pale thou art-thy lips are white

And thy breast heaves-and in thy gasping throat

The accents rattle: Give thy prayers to heaven

Pray-albeit but in thought,—but die not thus.

Man. 'Tis over-my dull eyes can fix thee not;

But all things swim around me, and the earth

Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well!

Give me thy hand. Abbot. Cold cold heart

---

even to the

But yet one prayer-Alas! how fares it with thee?

Man. Old man! 't is not so difficult to die. [MANFRED expires. Abbot. He's gone-his soul hath ta' en its earthless flight;

Whither? I dread to think-but he is

TO THOMAS MOORE

My boat is on the shore,

And my bark is on the sea; But, before I go, Tom Moore,

Here's a double health to thee!

Here's a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And, whatever sky's above me,
Here's a heart for every fate.

Though the ocean roar around me,
Yet it still shall bear me on;
Though a desert should surround me,
It hath springs that may be won.

Were't the last drop in the well,
As I gasp'd upon the brink,
Ere my fainting spirit fell,

'Tis to thee that I would drink.

With that water, as this wine,
The libation I would pour
Should be-peace with thine and mine,
And a health to thee, Tom Moore.
July, 1817. 1821.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, And music meets not always now the

ear:

Those days are gone-but Beauty still is here.

States fall, arts fade-but Nature doth not die.

Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,

The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of
Italy!

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms
despond

Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway:
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn

Although I found her thus, we did not part,

Perchance even dearer in her day of woe, Than when she was a boast, a marvel and a show.

I can repeople with the past—and of The present there is still for eye and thought,

And meditation chasten'd down,enough; And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;

And of the happiest moments which were wrought

Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice! have their colors caught:

There are some feelings Time cannot benumb,

Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

But my soul wanders; I demand it back To meditate amongst decay, and stand [St. 25 A ruin amidst ruins; there to track Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land

Which was the mightiest in its old command,

And is the loveliest, and must ever be The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand;

Wherein were cast the heroic and the free,

The beautiful, the brave, the lords of earth and sea,

The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil

The odorous purple of a new-born rose, Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows,

Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar,

Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,

From the rich sunset to the rising star, Their magical variety diffuse:

And now they change; a paler shadow strews

Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day

Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues

With a new color as it gasps away,