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At what? can he avouch-or answer what he Which nips life's tree, and dooms man's worst-his claim'd?

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second fall.

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CXIV.

Then turn we to her latest tribune's name, From her ten thousand tyrants turn to thee, Redeemer of dark centuries of shameThe friend of Petrarch-hope of ItalyRienzi! last of Romans! While the tree 55 Of freedom's withered trunk puts forth a leaf, Even for thy tomb a garland let it beThe forum's champion, and the people's chiefHer new-born Numa thou-with reign, alas! too

brief

CXV.

Egeira! sweet creation of some heart

Which found no mortal-resting-place so fair As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art Or wert, a young Aurora of the air, The nympholepsy of some fond despair; Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth, Who found a more than common votary there Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth.

CXVI.

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled
With thine Elysian water drops; the face
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled,
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase
Art's works; nor must the delicate waters sleep,
Prison'd in marble, bubbling from the base
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap

CXX.

Alas! our young affections run to waste,
Or water but the desert; whence arise
But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,
Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes,
Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies,
And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants
Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies
O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants
For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.
CXXI.

Oh Love? no habitant of earth thou art-
An unseen seraph, we believe in thee,
A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,
But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see
The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;
The mind hath made thee, as it peopled heaven,
Even with its own desiring phantasy,
And to a thought such shape and image given,
haunts the unquench'd soul-parch'd-wearied-
wrung-and riven.

CXXII.

Of its own beauty is the mind diseased,
And fevers into false creation:-where,
Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath seized?
In him alone. Can Nature show so fair?
Where are the charms and virtues which we dare
Conceive in boyhood and pursue as men,
The unreach'd Paradise of our despair,
Which o'er-informs the pencil and the pen,

The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers, and And overpowers the page where it would bloom

ivy creep

CXVII.

Fantastically tangled; the green hills

Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass; Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems color'd by its skies.

CXVIII.

Here didst thou dwell, in this enchanted cover, Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover; The purple Midnight veil'd that mystic meeting With her most starry canopy, and seating Thyself by thine adorer, what befell? This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting Of an enamoured Goddess, and the cell Haunted by holy Love-the earliest oracle!

CXIX.

And didst thou not, thy breast to his replying,
Blend a celestial with a human heart;
And Love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,
Share with immortal transports? could thine art
Make them indeed immortal, and impart
The purity of heaven to earthly joys,

Expel the venom and not blunt the dartThe dull satiety which all destroys

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Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
Necessity of loving, have removed.
Antipathies but to recur, ere long,
Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong;
And Circumstance, that unspiritual god
And miscreator, makes and helps along
Our coming evils with a crutch-like rod,

And root from out the soul the deadly weed which Whose touch turns Hope to dust,-the dust we all

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Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine But I have lived, and have not lived in vain :
And temple more divinely desolate,
Among thy mightier offerings here are mine,
Ruins of years-though few, yet full of fate :-
If thou hast ever seen me too elate,

Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne

Good, and reserved my pride against the hate Which shall not whelm me, let me not have worn

My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
And my frame perish even in conquering pain;
But there is that within me which shall tire
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;
Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
Like the remember'd tone of a mute lyre,
Shall on their soften'd spirits sink, and move

This iron in my soul in vain-shall they not mourn? In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.

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reft away.

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Which streams too much on all years, man, have What may the fruit be yet?-I know not-Cain was

Eve's.

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