Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.

When the whole host of hatred stood hard by,
To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast smiled
With a sedate and all-enduring eye ;-

When Fortune fled her spoil'd and favourite child, He stood unbow'd beneath the ills upon him piled! Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show That just habitual scorn which could contemn Men and their thoughts; 'twas wise to feel, not so To wear it ever on thy lip and brow,

And spurn the instruments thou wert to use Till they were turned unto thine overthrow : 'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose; So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose. If, like a tower upon a headlong rock,

Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone,

Such scorn of man had help'd to brave the shock; But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne,

Their admiration thy best weapon shone;

The part of Philip's son was thine, not then
(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown)
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men ;

For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den.
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,

And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire
And motion of the soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire

Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire

Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,

Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.

This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, And are themselves the fools to those they fool; Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings

Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine or

rule:

Their breath is agitation, and their life
A storm whereon they ride, to sink at last,
And yet so nursed and bigoted to strife,
That should their days, surviving perils past,
Melt to calm twilight, they feel overcast
With sorrow and supineness, and so die;
Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste
With its own flickerings, or a sword laid by
Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously.

INVOCATION TO NEMESIS.

And thou, who never yet of human wrong
Lost the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis !
Here where the ancient paid thee homage long-
Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss
For that unnatural retribution-just,

Had it but been from hands less near-in this

Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust! Dost thou not hear my heart ?-Awake! thou shalt, and must.

It is not that I may not have incurred
For my ancestral faults or mine the wound
I bleed withal; and, had it been conferred
With a just weapon, it had flow'd unbound;
But now my blood shall not sink in the ground;
To thee I do devote it-thou shalt take

The vengeance which shall yet be sought and found,
Which if I have not taken for the sake-

But let that pass-I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake.

And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now
I shrink from what is suffer'd: let him speak
Who hath beheld decline upon my brow,
Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak;
But in this page a record will I seek.

Not in the air shall these my words disperse,
Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak
The deep prophetic fulness of this verse,

And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!

That curse shall be Forgiveness.Have I not-
Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!-
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
Have I not suffer'd things to be forgiven?
Have I not had my brain sear'd, my heart riven,
Hopes snapped, name blighted, Life's life lied
And only not to desperation driven,

Because not altogether of such clay

As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.

From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy

[away?

Have I not seen what human things could do?
From the loud roar of foaming calumny
To the small whisper of the as paltry few,
And subtler venom of the reptile crew,

The Janus' glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.

But I have lived, and have not lived in vain : My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire, And my frame perish even in conquering pain, But there is that within me which shall tire Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire; Something unearthly, which they dream not of, Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,

Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.

NIGHT.

It was the night-and Lara's glassy stream
The stars are studding, each with imaged beam:
So calm, the waters scarcely seem'd to stray,
And yet they glide like happiness away;
Reflecting far and fairy-like from high

The immortal lights that live along the sky?
Its banks are fringed with many a goodly tree,
And flowers the fairest that may feast the bee;
Such in her chaplet infant Dian wove,

And Innocence would offer to her love.

These deck the shore, the waves their channel make
In windings bright and mazy like the snake.
All was so still, so soft in earth and air,

You scarce would start to meet a spirit there;
Secure that nought of evil could delight
To walk in such a scene, on such a night!

NIGHT AT SEA.

'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel We once have loved, though love is at an end. The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend. Who with the weight of years would wish to bend, When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy? Alas! when mingling souls forget to blend, Death hath but little left him to destroy ! [boy? Oh! happy years! once more who would not be a Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side,

To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere,

The soul forgets her schemes of Hope and Pride,
And flies unconscious o'er each backward year.
None are so desolate but something dear,
Dearer than self, possesses, or possessed

A thought, and claims the homage of a tear;
A flashing pang! of which the weary breast
Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest.

A NIGHT SCENE AT THE SIEGE OF CORINTH. 'Tis midnight on the mountains brown

:

The cold round moon shines deeply down;
Blue roll the waters, blue the sky
Spreads like an ocean hung on high,
Bespangled with those isles of light,
So wildly, spiritually bright;
Who ever gazed upon them shining,
And turned to earth without repining,
Nor wished for wings to flee away,
And mix with their eternal ray ?
The waves on either shore lay there
Calm, clear, and azure as the air;