'Father! thy days have pass'd in peace, 'Mid counted beads, and countless prayer; To bid the sins of others cease,

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Thyself without a crime or care, Save transient ills that all must bear, Has been thy lot from youth to age; And thou wilt bless thee from the rage Of passions fierce and uncontroll'd, Such as thy penitents unfold, Whose secret sins and sorrows rest Within thy pure and pitying breast. My days, though few, have pass'd below In much of joy, but more of woe; Yet still in hours of love or strife, I've 'scaped the weariness of life: Now leagued with friends, now girt by foes, I loathed the languor of repose. Now nothing left to love or hate, No more with hope or pride elate, I'd rather be the thing that crawls Most noxious o'er a dungeon's walls, Than pass my dull, unvarying days, Condemn'd to meditate and gaze. Yet, lurks a wish within my breast For rest but not to feel 't is rest. Soon shall my fate that wish fulfil;

And I shall sleep without the dream Of what I was, and would be still,

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Dark as to thee my deeds may seem: My memory now is but the tomb Of joys long dead; my hope, their doom: Though better to have died with those Than bear a life of lingering woes. My spirit shrunk not to sustain The searching throes of ceaseless pain; Nor sought the self-accorded grave Of ancient fool and modern knave: Yet death I have not fear'd to meet; And in the field it had been sweet, Had danger woo'd me on to move The slave of glory, not of love.

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I've braved it--not for honour's boast;
I smile at laurels won or lost;
To such let others carve their way,
For high renown, or hireling pay:
But place again before my eyes
Aught that I deem a worthy prize,
The maid I love, the man I hate;
And I will hunt the steps of fate,
To save or slay, as these require,
Through rending steel, and rolling fire:
Nor need'st thou doubt this speech from

one

Who would but do- what he hath done. Death is but what the haughty brave,

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It warm'd the heart of one abhorr'd. Nay, start not-no-nor bend thy knee, Nor midst my sins such act record; Thou wilt absolve me from the deed, For he was hostile to thy creed! The very name of Nazarene Was wormwood to his Paynim spleen. Ungrateful fool! since but for brands Well wielded in some hardy hands, And wounds by Galileans given, The surest pass to Turkish heaven, For him his Houris still might wait Impatient at the Prophet's gate.

I loved her love will find its way Through paths where wolves would fear to

prey;

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And if it dares enough, 't were hard
If passion met not some reward --
No matter how, or where, or why,
I did not vainly seek, nor sigh:
Yet sometimes, with remorse, in vain
I wish she had not loved again.
She died I dare not tell thee how;
But look 't is written on my brow!
There read of Cain the curse and crime,
In characters unworn by time:
Still, ere thou dost condemn me, pause;
Not mine the act, though I the cause.
Yet did he but what I had done
Had she been false to more than one.
Faithless to him, he gave the blow;
But true to me, I laid him low:
Howe'er deserved her doom might be,
Her treachery was truth to me;
To me she gave her heart, that all
Which tyranny can ne'er enthrall;
And I, alas! too late to save!
Yet all I then could give I gave,
'T was some relief, our foe a grave.
His death sits lightly; but her fate
Has made me what thou well may'st

hate.

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'The cold in clime are cold in blood, Their love can scarce deserve the name; But mine was like a lava flood

That boils in Etna's breast of flame. I cannot prate in puling strain Of ladye-love, and beauty's chain: If changing cheek, and scorching vein, Lips taught to writhe, but not complain, If bursting heart, and madd'ning brain, And daring deed, and vengeful steel, And all that I have felt, and feel, Betoken love that love was mine, And shown by many a bitter sign. 'Tis true, I could not whine nor sigh, I knew but to obtain or die.

I die but first I have possess'd,
And come what may, I have been blest.
Shall I the doom I sought upbraid?
No reft of all, yet undismay'd
But for the thought of Leila slain,
Give me the pleasure with the pain,
So would I live and love again.
I grieve, but not, my holy guide!
For him who dies, but her who died:
She sleeps beneath the wandering wave
Ah! had she but an earthly grave,
This breaking heart and throbbing head
Should seek and share her narrow bed.

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She was a form of life and light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose, where'er I turn'd mine eye,
The Morning-star of Memory!

'Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven;
A spark of that immortal fire
With angels shared, by Alla given,

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To lift from earth our low desire.
Devotion wafts the mind above,
But Heaven itself descends in love;
A feeling from the Godhead caught,
To wean from self each sordid thought;
A Ray of him who form'd the whole;
A Glory circling round the soul!
I grant my love imperfect, all
That mortals by the name miscall;
Then deem it evil, what thou wilt;
But say, oh say, hers was not guilt!
She was my life's unerring light:
That quench'd, what beam shall break my
night?

Oh! would it shone to lead me still,
Although to death or deadliest ill!
Why marvel ye, if they who lose

This present joy, this future hope,
No more with sorrow meekly cope;
In phrensy then their fate accuse;
In madness do those fearful deeds
That seem to add but guilt to woe?
Alas! the breast that inly bleeds

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Hath nought to dread from outward blow: Who falls from all he knows of bliss, Cares little into what abyss. Fierce as the gloomy vulture's now

To thee, old man, my deeds appear: 1160 I read abhorrence on thy brow,

And this too was I born to bear!
"T is true, that, like that bird of prey,
With havoc have I mark'd my way:
But this was taught me by the dove,
To die and know no second love.
This lesson yet hath man to learn,
Taught by the thing he dares to spurn:
The bird that sings within the brake,
The swan that swims upon the lake,
One mate, and one alone, will take.
And let the fool, still prone to range
And sneer on all who cannot change,
Partake his jest with boasting boys;
I envy not his varied joys,
But deem such feeble, heartless man
Less than yon solitary swan;
Far, far beneath the shallow maid
He left believing and betray'd.

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And she was lost- and yet I breathed, But not the breath of human life: A serpent round my heart was wreathed, And stung my every thought to strife. Alike all time abhorr'd, all place, Shuddering I shrunk from Nature's face, Where every hue that charm'd before The blackness of my bosom wore. The rest thou dost already know, And all my sins, and half my woe. But talk no more of penitence; Thou see'st I soon shall part from hence: And if thy holy tale were true, The deed that's done canst thou undo? Think me not thankless but this grief Looks not to priesthood for relief. My soul's estate in secret guess: But wouldst thou pity more, say less. When thou canst bid my Leila live, Then will I sue thee to forgive; Then plead my cause in that high place Where purchased masses proffer grace. Go, when the hunter's hand hath wrung From forest-cave her shrieking young, And calm the lonely lioness:

But soothe not mock not my distress!

'In earlier days, and calmer hours,

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When heart with heart delights to blend, Where bloom my native valley's bowers

I had Ah! have I now? - a friend! To him this pledge I charge thee send, Memorial of a youthful vow;

I would remind him of my end:

Though souls absorb'd like mine allow Brief thought to distant friendship's claim, Yet dear to him my blighted name. 'Tis strange he prophesied my doom,

And I have smiled - I then could smile When Prudence would his voice assume, And warn-I reck'd not what-the while:

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But now remembrance whispers o'er Those accents scarcely mark'd before. Say that his bodings came to pass,

-

And he will start to hear their truth, And wish his words had not been sooth: Tell him, unheeding as I was,

Through many a busy bitter scene Of all our golden youth had been In pain, my faltering tongue had tried 1240 To bless his memory ere I died; But Heaven in wrath would turn away, If Guilt should for the guiltless pray. I do not ask him not to blame, Too gentle he to wound my name; And what have I to do with fame? I do not ask him not to mourn, Such cold request might sound like scorn; And what than friendship's manly tear May better grace a brother's bier ? But bear this ring, his own of old, And tell him what thou dost behold! The wither'd frame, the ruin'd mind, The wrack by passion left behind, A shrivell'd scroll, a scatter'd leaf, Sear'd by the autumn blast of grief!

Tell me no more of fancy's gleam, No, father, no, 't was not a dream; Alas! the dreamer first must sleep, I only watch'd, and wish'd to weep; But could not, for my burning brow Throbb'd to the very brain as now: I wish'd but for a single tear, As something welcome, new, and dear: I wish'd it then, I wish it still; Despair is stronger than my will. Waste not thine orison, despair Is mightier than thy pious prayer: I would not, if I might, be blest; I want no paradise, but rest. 'T was then, I tell thee, father! then I saw her; yes, she lived again; And shining in her white symar, As through yon pale gray cloud the star Which now I gaze on, as on her, Who look'd and looks far lovelier; Dimly I view its trembling spark; To-morrow's night shall be more dark; And I, before its rays appear, That lifeless thing the living fear. I wander, father! for my soul Is fleeting towards the final goal. I saw her, friar! and I rose Forgetful of our former woes;

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I saw him buried where he fell;
He comes not, for he cannot break
From earth; why then art thou awake?
They told me wild waves roll'd above
The face I view, the form I love;
They told me 't was a hideous tale!
I'd tell it, but my tongue would fail:
If true, and from thine ocean-cave
Thou com'st to claim a calmer grave,
Oh! pass thy dewy fingers o'er
This brow that then will burn no more;
Or place them on my hopeless heart:
But, shape or shade! whate'er thou art,
In mercy ne'er again depart!
Or farther with thee bear my soul
Than winds can waft or waters roll!

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