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THE DEATH OF TASSO.

THE Poet was invited to Rome by the POPE and Cardinal CYNTHIO, to be publicly crowned with Laurel in the Capitol; an honour for which he was not solicitous, and which some presage assured him he would not receive. He arrived in the City; but some unforeseen circumstances delayed the ceremony, until he was seized with an illness which terminated his axist¬ ence on the 25th April, 1595.]

"Thou of the Lyre and Sword!"-Mrs. HEMANS.

OH seven-hilled City! tho' the prostrate world
Owns not thy sway, nor bends beneath thy yoke;
Though desolation is thy tyrant now,

And veils thy beauty with her gloomy pall;
Such thoughts of vanished grandeur still are linked
E'en with thy shadowy but undying name,
That honour from thy withered hand not yet
Hath altogether passed. Still it is thine
The Laurel round the Poet's brow to wreathe,,
To cheer the Bard in life's declining hour,
And shed a twilight lustre round his soul.
In every street of the eternal city
There is rejoicing; and the glad murmurs

Of the enraptured populace proclaim
Some festival, or high solemnity.

For him that melancholy man-a crown
This day is wreathed, that patriots of old

Have sighed to wear: for him is this rejoicing,-
But, like the cloud on which the sunbeams play,
The Poet's heart is dark amid all joy:

The gladness in the air-the smiles around him flung,
Touch not his soul; o'er which some presage hangs,
That deeply sheds its dark and lonely gloom.
Garlands are twined, and banners stream along-
But he for whom this glad array is meant,
Looks on the pageant with unenvying eye;
His thoughts are dwelling on a lasting crown,
Not of this world: and spiritless and faint,
Ere yet the laurel wreath twined round his brow,
Death gave his dark funereal cypress ;—

And now the voice of sorrow ye can hear
From lips that lately breathed ecstatic joy :-

DIRGE.

IN manhood's ripe bloom,

To the silent tomb,

Thy body we now consign;

Each harrowing grief

There shall find relief,

Thy spirit no more shall pino

There anguish and pain
Thy soul shall not stain,

And hushed is life's stormy roar..

Repose thee in peace,

Where sorrow shall cease,

And wailings are heard no more.

The wreath that we twined,

Thou hast now resigned,

For a purer crown above;

Where the stream of life

Is unmixed with strife,

Where reigns everlasting love.

High Princes no more

Shall make thee deplore

That thine was a soul of light;

Thy fame like a star

Shall shine from afar,

Above the dark clouds of night.

Resigned was thy soul

For its final goal

Thy spirit was mild and meek;

On thy placid brow,

No sorrow rests now,

Nor woe on thy care-worn cheek.,

Be it ours to weep
That Death's pallid sleep

For ever hath snapped the string

Of that lyre, whose strain

Could cheer human pain,

And gladness around it fling.

Now Poet répése!

From all earthly woes

Thy spirit hath passed away;

Be thine the calm rest

Of souls ever blest,

In realms of eternal day!

REQUIEM.

"Woe unto us-not her for she sleeps well."

BYRON.

OH! wherefore for the beautiful,
In life's gay spring-time flown,

Should we shed the tear of sorrow
Or heave the bitter moan?

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Was her path a path of flowers,

Her life a fairy scene,

Where misery did not enter,

And care had never been?

Rest! maiden rest f

The grief her soul hath vanished from,

It was not of a day;

Then mourn not that her spirit

From such should pass away.

Rest! maiden rest!

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