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Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,

In nameless print-that I have no devotion;
But set those persons down with me to pray,
And you shall see who has the properest notion
Of getting into heaven the shortest way;

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My altars are the mountains and the ocean, Earth, air, stars,-all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced, and will receive the soul.

Sweet hour of twilight !—in the solitude
Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er,
To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,
Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore
And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee !

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,

Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper bell's that rose the boughs along ; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,

His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng
Which learn'd from this example not to fly
From a true lover,-shadow'd my mind's eye.

Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things—
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,
To the young bird the parent's brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer;
Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest;
Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way

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As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns ?
Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!

When Nero perish'd by the justest doom
Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd,
Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,

Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd,
Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb:
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void
Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.

TROY

(CANTO IV, lxxvi—lxxviii)

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THERE, on the green and village-cotted hill, is
(Flank'd by the Hellespont, and by the sea)
Entomb'd the bravest of the brave, Achilles ;
They say so-(Bryant says the contrary):
And further downward, tall and towering still, is
The tumulus-of whom? Heaven knows; 't may be
Patroclus, Ajax, or Protesilaus ;

All heroes, who if living still would slay us.

High barrows, without marble, or a name,

A vast, untill'd, and mountain-skirted plain, And Ida in the distance, still the same,

And old Scamander (if 'tis he), remain ; The situation seems still form'd for fame

A hundred thousand men might fight again,
With ease; but where I sought for Ilion's walls,
The quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls;

Troops of untended horses; here and there
Some little hamlets, with new names uncouth;
Some shepherds (unlike Paris), led to stare
A moment at the European youth

ΙΟ

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Whom to the spot their school-boy feelings bear;
A Turk, with beads in hand, and pipe in mouth,
Extremely taken with his own religion,

Are what I found there-but the devil a Phrygian.

LIFE

(CANTO VII, i-vi and CANTO XV, xcix)

O LOVE! O Glory! what are you who fly
Around us ever, rarely to alight?

There's not a meteor in the Polar sky

Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight.
Chill, and chain'd to cold earth, we lift on high
Our eyes in search of either lovely light;
A thousand and a thousand colours they
Assume, then leave us on our freezing way.

And such as they are, such my present tale is,
A nondescript and ever-varying rhyme,

A versified Aurora Borealis,

Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime.
When we know what all are, we must bewail us,
But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime
To laugh at all things-for I wish to know
What, after all, are all things—but a show?

They accuse me— -Me-the present writer of
The present poem-of-I know not what-
A tendency to under-rate and scoff

At human power and virtue, and all that;
And this they say in language rather rough.

Good God! I wonder what they would be at ! I say no more than hath been said in Dante's Verse, and by Solomon and by Cervantes;

By Swift, by Machiavel, by Rochefoucault,
By Fénélon, by Luther, and by Plato;
By Tillotson, and Wesley, and Rousseau,
Who knew this life was not worth a potato.

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'Tis not their fault, nor mine, if this be so,—
For my part, I pretend not to be Cato,
Nor even Diogenes.—We live and die,
But which is best, you know no more than I.

Socrates said, our only knowledge was

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To know that nothing could be known; ' a pleasant Science enough, which levels to an ass

Each man of wisdom, future, past, or present.
Newton (that proverb of the mind), alas !

Declared, with all his grand discoveries recent,
That he himself felt only 'like a youth
Picking up shells by the great ocean-Truth.'

Ecclesiastes said, 'that all is vanity'.

Most modern preachers say the same, or show it By their examples of true Christianity:

In short, all know, or very soon may know it; And in this scene of all-confess'd inanity,

By saint, by sage, by preacher, and by poet, Must I restrain me, through the fear of strife, From holding up the nothingness of life?

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Between two worlds life hovers like a star, 'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge. How little do we know that which we are!

How less what we may be! The eternal surge Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar

Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Lash'd from the foam of ages; while the graves Of empires heave but like some passing waves.

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WELLINGTON

(CANTO IX, i—x).

Он, Wellington! (or 'Villainton '-for Fame
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways;
France could not even conquer your great name,
But punn'd it down to this facetious phrase—
Beating or beaten she will laugh the same,)

You have obtain❜d great pensions and much praise:
Glory like yours should any dare gainsay,
Humanity would rise, and thunder 'Nay!'

I don't think that you used Kinnaird quite well
In Marinèt's affair-in fact, 'twas shabby,
And like some other things won't do to tell

Upon your tomb in Westminster's old Abbey.
Upon the rest 'tis not worth while to dwell,

Such tales being for the tea-hours of some tabby; But though your years as man tend fast to zero, In fact your Grace is still but a young hero.

Though Britain owes (and pays you too) so much,
Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more :
You have repair'd Legitimacy's crutch,
A prop not quite so certain as before:
The Spanish, and the French, as well as Dutch,
Have seen, and felt, how strongly you restore;
And Waterloo has made the world your debtor
(I wish your bards would sing it rather better).

ΙΟ

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:

You are the best of cut-throats: '-do not start;
The phrase is Shakespeare's, and not misapplied :-
War's a brain-spattering, windpipe-slitting art,
Unless her cause by right be sanctified.
If you have acted once a generous part,

The world, not the world's masters, will decide,
And I shall be delighted to learn who,
Save you and yours, have gain'd by Waterloo ?

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