Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon : Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold, Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone: Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.

XCI.

Yet to the remnants of thy splendor past

Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng;
Long shall the voyager, with the Ionian blast,
Hail the bright clime of battle and of song;
Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore:
Boast of the aged! lesson of the young!
Which sages venerate and bards adore,
As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore.

The lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men;

b

A thousand hearts beat happily; and when

b

Music arose with its voluptuous swell,

Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell;

But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell.

XXII.

Did ye not hear it? No; 'twas but the wind,

Or the car rattling o'er the stony street;

On with the dance; let joy be unconfined; ·

No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet.
But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;

And nearer, clearer, deadlier than before !

Arm, arm! it is — it is the cannon's opening roar !

XXIV.

Ah, then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness;
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne'er might be repeated: who would guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

XXV.

And there was mounting in hot haste: the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war;
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum,
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,

Or whispering, with white lips, "The foe! They come, they come!"

XXVII.

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,

Dewy with Nature's tear-drops, as they pass,
Grieving, if aught inanimate e'er grieves,

Over the unreturning brave,—alas!

Ere evening to be trodden like the grass

Which now beneath them, but above shall grow

In its next verdure, when this fiery mass

Of living valor, rolling on the foe,

And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

XXVIII.

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,

Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay.

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms, — the day

Battle's magnificently stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent

The earth is covered thick with other clay, Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, - in one red burial blent.

Rider and horse, — friend, foe,

GREAT SOULS LONELY.

CANTO III.

XLV.

He who ascends to mountain-tops shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind

Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though high above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,

And thus reward the toils which to those summits led.

A STORM IN THE ALPS.

XCII.

THE sky is changed! and such a change! O night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue; And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

VENICE.

CANTO IV.

I.

I STOOD in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:

I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles

O'er the far times when many a subject land

Looked to the wingéd Lion's marble piles,

Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles.

II.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:

And such she was: her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone but Beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade — but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond

Her name in story, and her long array

Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the Dogeless city's vanished sway;
Ours in a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,

And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away —

The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,

For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

THE OCEAN.

CANTO IV.

CLXXVIII.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

CLXXIX.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin, his control

Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

CLXXX.

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields

Are not a spoil for him, thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth : there let him lay.

CLXXXI.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make