But he had higher, nobler wreaths than those Given or withheld by ever-changeful Fame; He was the good-the just; and virtue throws deathless Her evergreen round Southey's
SEE, from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim
The father was of Tuscan song.
There but the burning sense of wrong,
Perpetual care and storm abide;
Small friendship for the lordly throng;
Distrust of all the world beside.
Faithful if this wan image be,
No dream his life was-but a fight;
Could any Beatrice see
A lover in that anchorite?
To that cold Ghibeline's gloomy sight
Who could have guessed the visions came
Of Beauty, veiled with heav'nly light,
In circles of eternal flame?
The lips, as Cuma's cavern close,
The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin,
The rigid front almost morose,
But for the patient hope within,
Declare a life whose course hath been
Unsullied still, though still severe,
Which, through the wavering days of sin,
Kept itself icy-chaste and clear.
Not wholly such his haggard look
When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed,
With no companion save his book,
To Corvo's hushed monastic shade;
Where, as the Benedictine laid
His palm upon the pilgrim guest,
The single boon for which he prayed,
The convent's charity, was rest.
Peace dwells not here-this rugged face
Betrays no spirit of repose;
The sullen warrior sole we trace,
The marble man of many woes.
Such was his mien when first arose
The thought of that strange tale divine,
When hell he peopled with his foes,
The scourge of many a guilty line.
War to the last he waged with all
The tyrant canker-worms of earth;
Baron and duke, in hold and hall,
Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth;
He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;
Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime;
But valiant souls of knightly worth
Transmitted to the rolls of Time.
O Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou;
That poor old exile, sad and lone,
Is Latium's other Virgil now:
Before his name the nations bow:
His words are parcel of mankind,
Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,
The marks have sunk of Dante's mind.
LIFE is real! Life is earnest !
And the grave is not its goal; "Dust thou art, to dust returnest," Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us
Footsteps on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
Most royal lady, on thy face I look,
And gather thence, as from some holy book
Of mingled history and prophecy,
The future fate of England. Thy clear eye-
Clear and serene as some deep Alpine lake-
Speaks of a steadfast soul, tutor❜d to take
No note of time or change, to own no ill,
To let no troubles touch, no pleasures fill
Thy woman's breast, save as they point the way
To that loved people's welfare, whom thy sway
Has fill'd with new-born hopes of coming good,
Greater than all that past on which their me-
mories brood.
That brow, more fair in its simplicity
Than when it glow'd in crowned majesty,
Glitt'ring with gorgeous gems-that lofty brow-
Tells of high thoughts, that lift thy spirit now-
Now that thou art a Queen-above the strife
Of earth-born passions,-making thy young life
The living type of a new-waking dawn,
To countless generations yet unborn.
That mouth, in its proud beauty, speaks of power
To curb those fair affections, the sweet dower
Of all thy sex, save only her whose fate
Calls her to wear the round of sovereign state.
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