XVI.

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,

And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, (11)
Her voice their only ransom from afar :
See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins

Fall from his hands-his idle scimitar

Starts from its belt-he rends his captive's chains,

And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.

XVII.

Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,

Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,

Thy choral memory of the Bard divine,
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
Is shameful to the nations,-most of all,
Albion to thee: the Ocean queen should not
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall

Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.

XVIII.

I loved her from my boyhood-she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,

Rising like water-columns from the sea,

Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart; And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art, (12) Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so, 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.

XIX.

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 colours caught:
There are some feelings Time can not benumb,

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

XX.

But from their nature will the tannen

grow (13)

Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below

Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
The howling tempest, till its height and frame

Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks
Of bleak, gray, granite, into life it came,

And grew a giant tree;-the mind may grow the same.

XXI.

Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
In bare and desolated bosoms: mute
The camel labours with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence,—not bestow'd
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear,-it is but for a day.

XXII.

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd,
Even by the sufferer; and, in each event
Ends :-Some, with hope replenish'd and rebuoy'd,
Return to whence they came-with like intent,
And weave their, web again; some, bow'd and bent,
Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time,
And perish with the reed on which they leant;
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime,
According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb:

XXIII.

But ever and anon of griefs subdued

There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside for ever: it may be a sound-

A tone of music,-summer's eve-or spring,

A flower-the wind-the ocean-which shall wound,

Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound;

XXIV.

And how and why we know not, nor can trace
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface

The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,
Which out of things familiar, undesign'd,

When least we deem of such, calls up to view

The spectres whom no exorcism can bind,

The cold-the changed-perchance the dead-anew,

The mourn'd, the loved, the lost-too many!-yet how few!

XXV.

But

my soul wanders; I demand it back

To meditate amongst decay, and stand

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,