Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair No stone is there to show-no tongue to say What was ; no dirge, except the hollow seas, Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades. But many a Greek maid, in a loving song, Sighs o'er her name : and many an islander With her sire's story makes the night less long ; Valour was his, and beauty dwelt with her : If she loved rashly, her life paid for wrong A heavy price must all pay who thus err, In some shape ; let none think to fly the danger, For soon or late Love is his own avenger. HEBREW MELODIES. Of cloudless climes and starry skies ; Meet in her aspect and her eyes : Which heaven to gaudy day denies. Had half-impair'd the nameless grace Or softly lightens o'er her face ; How pure-how dear their dwelling-place. So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, But tell of days in goodness spent, II. Our own, surviving Love endears ; The eye the same, except in tearsHow welcome those untrodden spheres ! How sweet this very hour to die ! To soar from earth and find all fears Lost in thy light-Eternity! It must be so : 'tis not for self That we so tremble on the brink; And striving to o'erleap the gulf, Yet cling to Being's severing link. To hold each heart the heart that shares, III. But on thy turf shall roses rear Their leaves, the earliest of the year; Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, And lingering pause and lightly tread; That death nor heeds nor hears distress : Will this unteach us to complain ? Or make one mourner weep the less ? And thou-who tell'st me to forget, IV. The harp I yet can brook to hear ; Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear. If in this heart a hope be dear, That sound shall charm it forth again; If in these eyes there lurk a tear, 'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain : But bid the strain be wild and deep, Nor let thy notes of joy be first: I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep, Or else this heavy heart will burst ; For it hath been by sorrow nurst, And ached in sleepless silence long; V. Came o'er that eye of blue; A violet dropping dew: Beside thee ceased to shine; That fill’d that glance of thine. A deep and mellow dye, Can banish from the sky, Those smiles unto the moodiest mind Their own pure joy impart; That lightens o'er the heart. VI. When coldness wraps this suffering clay, Ah, whither strays the immortal mind ? It cannot die—it cannot stay, But leaves its darkened dust behind. Then, únimbodied, doth it trace By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey ? Eternal, boundless, undecayed, A thought unseen, but seeing all All, all in earth, or skies display'd, Shall it survey, shall it recall : So darkly of departed years, And all, that was, at once appears. Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, Fix'd in its own eternity. It lives all passionless and pure: Its years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing, O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; VII. VIII. THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen : Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd; And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still ! And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there roll’d not the breath of his pride : |