I thought mine enemies had been but man,
But spirits may be leagued with them-all Earth
Abandons-Heaven forgets me ;-in the dearth
Of such defence the Powers of Evil can,
It may be, tempt me further, and prevail
Against the outworn creature they assail.
Why in this furnace is my spirit proved
Like steel in tempering fire? because I loved?
Because I loved what not to love, and see,
Was more or less than mortal, and than me.
IX.

I once was quick in feeling-that is o'er :-
My scars are callous, or I should have dash'd
My brain against these bars as the sun flash'd
In mockery through them ;-if I bear and bore
The much I have recounted, and the more
Which hath no words, 'tis that I would not die
And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie
Which snared me here, and with a brand of shame.
Stamp madness deep into my memory,
And woo compassion to a blighted name,
Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim.
No-it shall be immortal!-and I make
A future temple of my present cell,
Which nations yet shall visit for my sake.

While thou, Ferrara! when no longer dwell
The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt fall down,
And crumbling piecemeal view thy heartless hall,
A poet's wreath shall be thine only crown,
A poet's dungeon thy most far renown,
While stranger's wonder o'er thy unpeopled walls!
And thou, Leonora! thou-who wert ashamed
That such as I could love-who blush'd to hear
To less than monarchs that thou could'st be dear,
Go! tell thy brother that my heart, untamed
By grief, years, weariness-and it may be
A taint of that he would impute to me-
From long infection of a den like this,
Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss,
Adores thee still;-and add-that when the towers
And battlements, which guard his joyous hours
Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot,
Or left untended in a dull repose,
This-this shall be a consecrated spot!
But Thou-when all that Birth and Beauty throws
Of magic round thee is extinct-shalt have
One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave.
No power in death can tear our names apart,
As none in life could rend thee from my heart.
Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate

To be entwined for ever-but too late!

WHEN the last sunshine of expiring day
In summer's twilight weeps itself away,
Who hath not felt the softness of the hour
Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower?
With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes,
While Nature makes that melancholy pause,
Her breathing moment on the bridge where Time
Of light and darkness forms an arch sublime,
Who hath not shared that calm so still and deep,
The voiceless thought which would not speak but
weep,

A holy concord—and a bright regret,
A glorious sympathy with suns that set?
'Tis not harsh sorrow-but a tender wo,
Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness-but full and clear,
A sweet dejection-a transparent tear,
Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame-and secret without pain.

Even as the tenderness that hour instils, When Summer's day declines along the hills,

So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes,
When all of Genius which can perish dies.

A mighty Spirit is eclipsed-a Power
Hath pass'd from day to darkness--to whose

hour

Of light no likeness is bequeath’d—no name,
Focus at once of all the rays of Fame!
The flash of Wit-the bright Intelligence,
The beam of Song-the blaze of Eloquence,
Set with their Sun-but still have left behind
The enduring produce of immortal Mind;
Fruits of a genial morn, and glorious noon,
A deathless part of him who died too soon.
But small that portion of the wondrous whole,
These sparkling segments of that circling soul,
Which all embraced-and lighten'd over all,
To cheer-to pierce-to please-or to appal.
From the charm'd council to the festive board,
Of human feelings the unbounded lord;
In whose acclaim the loftiest voices vied,
The praised-the proud-who made his praise their
pride.

When the loud cry of trampled Hindostan* Arose to heaven in her appeal from man, His was the thunder-his the avenging rod, The wrath-the delegated voice of God!

And here, oh! here, where yet all young and warm,
The gay creations of his spirit charm,
The matchless dialogue-the deathless wit,
Which knew not what it was to intermit;

The glowing portraits, fresh from life, that bring
Home to our hearts the truth from which they spring;
These wondrous beings of his Fancy, wrought
To fulness by the fiat of his thought,
Here in their first abode you still may meet,
Bright with the hues of his Promethean heat,
A halo of the light of other days,
Which still the splendor of its orb betrays.

But should there be to whom the fatal blight,
Of failing Wisdom yields a base delight,
Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone
Jar in the music which was born their own,
Still let them pause--Ah! little do they know
That what to them seem'd Vice might be but Wo.
Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze
Is fix'd forever to detract or praise;
Repose denies her requiem to his name,
And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame.
The secret enemy whose sleepless eye
Stands sentinel-accuser-judge-and spy,
The foe the fool-the jealous-and the vain,
The envious who but breathe in others' pain,
Behold the host! delighting to deprave,
Who track the steps of Glory to the grave,
Watch every fault that daring Genius owes
Half to the ardor which his birth bestows,
Distort the truth, accumulate the lie,
And pile the pyramid of Calumny!

* See Fox, Burke, and Pitt's eulogy on Mr. Sheridan's speech on the charges exhibited against Mr. Hastings in the House of Commons. Mr. Pitt entreated the House to adjourn, to give time for a calmer consideration of the question than could then occur after the immediate effect of that oration.

Meet sordid Rage-and wrestle with Disgrace,
To find in Hope but the renew'd caress,
The serpent-fold of further Faithlessness,-
If such may be the ills which men assail,
What marvel if at last the mightiest fail?
Breasts to whom all the strength of feeling given
Bear hearts electric-charged with fire from Heaven,
Black with the rude collision, inly torn,

By clouds surrounded, and on whirlwinds borne,
Driven o'er the lowering atmosphere that nurst
Thoughts which have turn'd to thunder-scorch-
and burst.

But far from us and from our mimic scene
Such things should be-if such have ever been;
Ours be the gentler wish, the kinder task,
To give the tribute Glory need not ask,
To mourn the vanquish'd beam-and add our mite
Of praise in payment of a long delight.
Ye Orators! whom yet our councils yield,
Mourn for the veteran Hero of our field!
The worthy rival of the wondrous Three! *
Whose words were sparks of Immortality!
Ye Bards! to whom the Drama's Muse is dear,
He was your Master-emulate him here!
Ye men of wit and social eloquence!

He was your brother bear his ashes hence !
While Powers of mind, almost of boundless range,
Complete in kind—as various in their change,
While eloquence-Wit-Poesy-and Mirth,
That humble Harmonist of care on Earth,
Survive within our souls-while lives our sense
Of pride in Merit's proud preëminence,
Long shall we seek his likeness-long in vain,
And turn to all of him which may remain,
Sighing that Nature form❜d but one such man,
And broke the die-in moulding Sheridan!

• Fox-Pitt-Burke.

JUVENAL, Satire x.

I.

OH Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,

A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,
What should thy sons do ?-any thing but weep:
And yet they only murmur in their sleep.
In contrast with their fathers—as the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the springtide foam
That drives the sailor shipless to his home,
Are they to those that were; and thus they creep,
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping

streets.

Oh! agony-that centuries should reap

No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years
Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears;
And every monument the stranger meets,
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets;
And even the Lion all subdued appears,
And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum,
With dull and daily dissonance, repeats
The echo of thy tyrant's voice along
The soft waves, once all musical to song,

And as he whispers knows not that he gasps,
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps,
And so the film comes o'er him—and the dizzy
Chamber swims round and round--and shadows busy,
At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam,
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled stream
And all is ice and blackness-and the earth
That which it was the moment ere our birth.

II.

There is no hope for nations!-Search the page
Of many thousand years-the daily scene,
The flow and ebb of each recurring age,

The everlasting to be which hath been,
Hath taught us nought or little still we lean
On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear
Our strength away in wrestling with the air;
For 'tis our nature strikes us down: the beasts
Slaughter'd in hourly hecatombs for feasts
Are of as high an order-they must go

Even where their driver goads them, though to

slaughter.

Of gondolas-and to the busy hum

Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds
Were but the overbeating of the heart,
And flow of too much happiness, which needs
The aid of age to turn its course apart
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood
Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood.
But these are better than the gloomy errors,
The weeds of nations in their last decay,
When Vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors,
And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay;
And Hope is nothing but a false delay,
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere death,
When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain,
And apathy of limb, the dull beginning

Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning,
Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away,
Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay,
To him appears renewal of his breath,
And freedom the mere numbness of his chain ;-
And then he talks of life, and how again
He feels his spirit soaring-albeit weak,
And of the fresher air, which he would seek ·

A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows.
What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn,
O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal,
And deem this proof of loyalty the real
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars,
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars?
All that your sires have left you, all that Time
Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime,
Spring from a different theme !-Ye see and read,
Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed !
Save the few spirits, who, despite of all,

And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd
By the down-thundering of the prison-wall,
And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd,
Gushing from Freedom's fountains-when the crowd,
Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud,
And trample on each other to obtain,
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain
Heavy and sore,-in which long yoked they plough'd
The sand,—or if there sprung the yellow grain,
'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bow'
And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain :
Yes! the few spirits-who, despite of deeds.