AN

SY

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Ꮮ Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꭺ,

A TALE.

CANTO I.

B

LARA.

CANTO I.

I.

THE Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,

And Slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhop'd, but unforgotten lord,
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window plays
The unwonted faggots' hospitable blaze;

And gay retainers gather round the hearth

With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

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II.

The chief of Lara is returned again:

And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself;-that heritage of woe,

That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest!-
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern❜d men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.

III.

And Lara left in youth his father-land;

But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.

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