TO FLORENCE.

LONG years have passed with silent pace
Florence! since thou and I have met;
Yet, when that meeting I retrace,
My cheek is pale, my eye is wet;
For I was doomed from thence to rove
O'er distant tracts of earth and sea,
Unaided, Florence !-save by love;
And unremembered-save by thee!
We met, and hope beguiled our fears—
Hope, ever bright, and ever vain ;
We parted thence in silent tears,
Never to meet in life again.
The myrtle that I gaze upon,

Sad token by thy love devised,

Is all the record left of one

So long bewailed, so dearly prized. You gave it in an hour of grief,

When gifts of love are doubly dear;

You gave it, and one tender leaf

Glistened the while with beauty's tear.

A tear-oh! lovelier far to me,

Shed for me in my saddest hour, Than bright and flattering smiles could be, In courtly hall or summer bower.

You strove my anguish to beguile

With distant hopes of future weal;
You strove-alas! you could not smile,
Nor speak the hope you did not feel.
I bore the gift affection gave

O'er desert sand and thorny brake,
O'er rugged rock and stormy wave,—
I loved it for the giver's sake;
And often in my happiest day,

In scenes of bliss and hours of pride,
When all around was glad and gay,

I looked upon the gift, and sighed : And when on ocean or on clift

Forth strode the Spirit of the storm,
I gazed upon thy fading gift,

I thought upon thy fading form;
Forgot the lightning's vivid dart,
Forgot the rage of sky and sea,
Forgot the doom that bade us part,
And only lived to love and thee.
Florence!-thy myrtle blooms! but thou,
Beneath thy cold and lowly stone,
Forgetful of our mutual vow,

And of a heart-still all thine own,

Art laid in that unconscious sleep

Which he that wails thee soon must know,

Where none may smile, and none may weep, None dream of bliss, nor wake to woe.

If e'er, as fancy oft will feign,

To that dear spot which gave thee birth Thy fleeting shade returns again

To look on him thou lov'dst on earth, It may a moment's joy impart,

To know that this, thy favourite tree, Is to my desolated heart

Almost as dear as thou couldst be.

My Florence! soon-the thought is sweet!
The turf that wraps thee I shall press;
Again, my Florence! we shall meet,
In bliss-or in forgetfulness.
With thee in death's oblivion laid,
I will not have the cypress gloom
To throw its sickly sullen shade

Over the stillness of my tomb;

And there the scutcheon shall not shine,
And there the banner shall not wave;
The treasures of the glittering mine

Would ill become a lover's grave;
But when from this abode of strife
My liberated shade shall roam,
Thy myrtle, that has cheered my life,
Shall decorate my narrow home;
And it shall bloom in beauty there,
Like Florence in her early day;
Or, nipped by cold December's air,
Wither-like hope and thee-away.

(1820.)

MARIUS AMIDST THE RUINS OF CARTHAGE.

CARTHAGE, I love thee! thou hast run—

As I-a warlike race;

And now thy glory's radiant sun

Hath veiled in clouds his face :

Thy days of pride-as mine-depart ;
Thy gods desert thee, and thou art
A thing as nobly base

As he whose sullen footstep falls

To-night around thy crumbling walls.

And Rome hath heaped her woes and pains

Alike on me and thee;

And thou dost sit in servile chains,—
But mine they shall not be!
Though fiercely o'er this aged head
The wrath of angry Jove is shed,
Marius shall still be free-

Free in the pride that scorns his foe,

And bares the head to meet the blow.

(1821.)

I wear not yet thy slavery's vest,

As desolate I

roam;

And though the sword were at my breast,

The torches in my home,

Still-still, for orison and vow,

I'd fling them back my curse-as now ;
I scorn, I hate thee-Rome!

My voice is weak to word and threat,
My arm is strong to battle yet!