Her eyelashes, though dark as night, were tinged

(It is the country's custom), but in vain; For those large black eyes were so blackly fringed, The glossy rebels mock'd the jetty stain, And in their native beauty stood avenged:

Her nails were touch'd with henna; but again The power of art was turn'd to nothing, for They could not look more rosy than before.

AURORA RABY.

(DON JUAN, Canto xv. Stanzas 43-47.)

AND then there was

- but why should I go on, Unless the ladies should go off? — there was Indeed a certain fair and fairy one,

Of the best class, and better than her class,
Aurora Raby, a young star who shone

O'er life, too sweet an image for such glass,
A lovely being, scarcely form'd or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded;

Rich, noble, but an orphan: left an only

Child to the care of guardians good and kind; But still her aspect had an air so lonely!

Blood is not water; and where shall we find Feelings of youth like those which overthrown lie By death, when we are left, alas! behind,

To feel, in friendless palaces, a home
Is wanting, and our best ties in the tomb?

Early in years, and yet more infantine
In figure, she had something of sublime
In eyes which sadly shone, as seraphs' shine.

All youth but with an aspect beyond time;
Radiant and grave as pitying man's decline;

Mournful but mournful of another's crime,
She look'd as if she sate by Eden's door,
And grieved for those who could return no more.

She was a Catholic, too, sincere, austere,

As far as her own gentle heart allow'd,
And deem'd that fallen worship far more dear
Perhaps because 't was fall'n: her sires were proud
Of deeds and days when they had fill'd the ear
Of nations, and had never bent or bow'd

To novel power; and as she was the last,
She held their old faith and old feelings fast.

She gazed upon a world she scarcely knew,
As seeking not to know it; silent, lone,
As grows a flower, thus quietly she grew,

And kept her heart serene within its zone.
There was awe in the homage which she drew;
Her spirit seem'd as seated on a throne
Apart from the surrounding world, and strong
In its own strength -

most strange in one so young!

III.

DRAMATIC.

Man. THE lamp must be replenish'd, but even then It will not burn so long as I must watch: My slumbers if I slumber· -are not sleep, But a continuance of enduring thought, Which then I can resist not: in my heart There is a vigil, and these eyes but close To look within; and yet I live, and bear The aspect and the form of breathing men. But grief should be the instructor of the wise; Sorrow is knowledge: they who know the most Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. Philosophy and science, and the springs Of wonder, and the wisdom of the world, I have essay'd, and in my mind there is power to make these subject to itself But they avail not: I have done men good, And I have met with good even among men But this avail'd not: I have had my foes, And none have baffled, many fallen before me — But this avail'd not: Good, or evil, life, Powers, passions, all I see in other beings, Have been to me as rain unto the sands, Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread,

A