CLXII.

But in his delicate form - a dream of Love,
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
Long'd for a deathless lover from above,
And madden'd in that vision - are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd
The mind with in its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly guest -
A ray of immortality - and stood,
Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god!

CLXIII.

And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven The fire which we endure, it was repaid By him to whom the energy was given Which this poetic marble hath array'd With an eternal glory - which, if made By human hands, is not of human thought; And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid One ringlet in the dust - nor hath it caught A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which

't was wrought.

CLXIV.

But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song,
The being who upheld it through the past?
Methinks he cometh late and tarries long.
He is no more - these breathings are his last;
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast,
And he himself as nothing: if he was
Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd
With forms which live and suffer - let that pass -

His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass,

CLXV.

Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all

That we inherit in its mortal shroud,

And spreads the dim and universal pall

[cloud

Through which all things grow phantoms; and the Between us sinks and all which ever glow'd,

Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays

A melancholy halo scarce allow'd

To hover on the verge of darkness; rays

Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,

CLXVI.

And send us prying into the abyss,

To gather what we shall be when the frame
Shall be resolved to something less than this
Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame,
And wipe the dust from off the idle name
We never more shall hear, but never more,
Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same :
It is enough in sooth that once we bore

These fardels of the heart - the heart whose sweat was

gore.

CLXVII.

Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,
A long low distant murmur of dread sound,
Such as arises when a nation bleeds
With some deep and immedicable wound;
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground,
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief
Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd,
And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief

She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.

CLXVIII.

Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?
Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low
Some less majestic, less beloved head?
In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled,
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy,
Death hush'd that pang for ever: with thee fled
The present happiness and promised joy

Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy.

CLXIX.

Peasants bring forth in safety. - Can it be, Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored! Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head Beheld her Iris. - Thou, too, lonely lord, And desolate consort - vainly wert thou wed! The husband of a year! the father of the dead!

CLXX.

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid, The love of millions! How we did entrust Futurity to her! and, though it must Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd Our children should obey her child, and bless'd Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd Like stars to shepherds' eyes: -'t was but a meteor

beam'd.

CLXXI.

Woe unto us, not her 1; for she sleeps well:
The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle,
Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung
Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung
Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate2
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung
Against their blind omnipotence a weight

Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,

CLXXII.

These might have been her destiny; but no, Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair, Good without effort, great without a foe; But now a bride and mother - and now there! How many ties did that stern moment tear ! From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast Is link'd the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest The land which loved thee so that none could love thee

best.

1 ["The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here (Venice), and must have been an earthquake at home. The fate of this poor girl is melancholy in every respect; dying at twenty or so, in childbed- of a boy too, a present princess and future queen, and just as she began to be happy, and to enjoy herself, and the hopes which she inspired. I feel sorry in every respect." - Byron Letters.]

2 Mary died on the scaffold; Elizabeth of a broken heart; Charles V. a hermit; Louis XIV. a bankrupt in means and glory; Cromwell of anxiety; and, "the greatest is behind," Napoleon lives a prisoner. To these sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added of names equally illustrious and unhappy.

CLXXIII.

Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills
So far, that the uprooting wind which tears
The oak from his foundation, and which spills
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears

Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;
And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,
All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

CLXXIV.

And near Albano's scarce divided waves
Shine from a sister valley; - and afar
The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,
"Arms and the Man," whose re-ascending star
Rose o'er an empire: -but beneath thy right
Tully reposed from Rome; - and where yon bar
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight

The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight. 2

1 The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of Egeria, and, from the shades which embosomed the temple of Diana, has preserved to this day its distinctive appellation of The Grove. Nemi is but an evening's ride from the comfortable inn of Aibano.

2 The whole deciivity of the Alban hill is of unrivalled beauty, and from the convent on the highest point, which has succeeded to the temple of the Latian Jupiter, the prospect embraces all the objects alluded to in this stanza; the Mediterranean; the whole scene of the latter half of the Æneid, and the coast from beyond the mouth of the Tiber to the headland of Circæum and the Cape of Terracina. See Appendix, " Historical Notes," No. xxxi.