Fair, as the first that fell of womankind,
When on that dread yet lovely serpent smiling,
Whose image then was stamped upon her mind
But once beguiled and ever more beguiling;
Dazzling, as that, oh! too transcendent vision
To sorrow's phantom-peopled slumber given, When heart meets heart again in dreams Elysian, And paints the lost on earth revived in heaven; Soft, as the memory of buried loye;
Pure, as the prayer which childhood wafts above, Was she the daughter of that rude old chief, Who met the maid with tears - but not of grief.
Who hath not proved how feebly words essay
To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray?
Who doth not feel, until his failing sight
Faints into dimness with its own delight,
His changing cheek, his sinking heart confess
The might the majesty of loveliness?
Such was Zuleika - such around her shone
The nameless charms unmarked by her alone;
The light of love, the purity of grace,
The mind, the music breathing from her face,
The heart whose softness harmonized the whole
And, oh! that eye was in itself a soul!
THOU art not false, but thou art fickle
To those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle
Are doubly bitter from that thought:
"Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest, Too well thou lov'st too soon thou leavest.
The wholly false the heart despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit ;
But she who not a thought disguises,
Whose love is as sincere as sweet, -
When she can change who loved so truly,
It feels what mine has felt so newly.
To dream of joy and wake to sorrow,
Is doomed to all who love or live:
And if, when conscious on the morrow,
We scarce our fancy can forgive,
That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,
What must they feel whom no false vision,
But truest, tendeerst passion warmed?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition,
As if a dream alone had charmed?
Ah! sure such grief is fancy's scheming,
And all thy change can be but dreaming!
I SPEAK not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name,
There is grief in the sound, there is guilt in the fame:
But the tear which now burns on my cheek may impart
The deep thoughts that dwell in that silence of heart.
Too brief for our passion, too long for our peace,
Were those hours-can their joy or their bitterness cease?
We repent-we abjure-we will break from our chain,
We will part,—we will fly to unite it again!
Oh! thine be the gladness, and mine be the guilt! Forgive me, adored one!-forsake, if thou wilt: But the heart which is thine shall expire undebased, And man shall not break it—whatever thou may'st.
And stern to the haughty, but humble to thee,
This soul in its bitterest blackness, shall be;
And our days seem as swift, and our moments more sweet,
With thee by my side, than with worlds at our feet.
One sigh of thy sorrow, one look of thy love,
Shall turn me or fix, shall reward or reprove;
And the heartless may wonder at all I resign
Thy lip shall reply, not to them, but to mine.
ETERNAL spirit of the chainless mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart-
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned —
To fetters and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martrydom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon thy prison is a holy place,
And thy sad floor an altar- for 't was trod,
Until his very steps havé left a trace
Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,
By Bonnivard!- May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God.
SLOW sinks, more lovely ere his race be run,
Along Morea's hills the setting sun;
Not, as in northern climes, obscurely bright,
But one unclouded blaze of living light;
O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws,
Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows;
On old Ægina's rock and Hydra's isle
The god of gladness sheds his parting smile;
O'er his own regions lingering loves to shine,
Though there his altars are no more divine.
Descending fast, the mountain-shadows kiss
Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis !
Their azure arches through the long expanse,
More deeply purpled, meet his mellowing glance,
And tenderest tints, along their summits driven,
Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven;
Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep,
Behind his Delphian rock he sinks to sleep.
ON THE BUST OF HELEN BY CANOVA.
In this beloved marble view,
Above the works and thoughts of man,
What Nature could, but would not, do
And beauty and Canova can!
Beyond imagination's power,
Beyond the bard's defeated art,
With immortality her dower,
Behold the Helen of the heart!
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