The illusion's gone for ever, and thou art Insensible, I trust, but none the worse, And in thy stead I've got a deal of judgment,

Though heaven knows how it ever found a lodgment.

My days of love are over; me no more The charms of maid, wife, and still less of widow,

Can make the fool of which they made before,

In short, I must not lead the life I did do;

The credulous hope of mutual minds is o'er,

The copious use of claret is forbid too, So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice.

Ambition was my idol, which was broken Before the shrines of Sorrow, and of Pleasure;

And the two last have left me many a token

O'er which reflection may be made at leisure;

Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head,

A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.

Canto I. September, 1818. July 15, 1819.

FROM CANTO II

THE SHIPWRECK

"TWAS twilight, and the sunless day went down [St. 49. Over the waste of waters; like a veil, Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown

Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail. Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown,

And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale, And the dim desolate deep: twelve days had Fear

Been their familiar, and now Death was here.

Some trial had been making at a raft,

With little hope in such a rolling sea, A sort of thing at which one would have laugh'd,

If any laughter at such times could be, Unless with people who too much have quaff'd,

And have a kind of wild and horrid glee,

Half epileptical, and half hysterical :Their preservation would have been a miracle.

At half-past eight o'clock, booms, hencoops, spars,

And all things, for a chance, had been cast loose

That still could keep afloat the struggling tars,

For yet they strove, although of no great use:

There was no light in heaven but a few stars,

The boats put off o'ercrowded with

their crews;

She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port, And, going down head-foremost-sunk, in short.

Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell

Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave

Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell,

As eager to anticipate their grave; And the sea yawn'd around her like a

hell.

She waited on her lady with the sun, Thought daily service was her only mission,

Bringing warm water, wreathing her long tresses,

And asking now and then for cast-off dresses.

It was the cooling hour, just when the rounded

Red sun sinks down behind the azure hill,

Which then seems as if the whole earth it bounded,

Circling all nature, hush'd, and dim, and still,

With the far mountain-crescent half surrounded

On one side, and the deep sea calm and chill,

Upon the other, and the rosy sky, With one star sparkling through it like an eye.

And thus they wander'd forth, and hand in hand,

Over the shining pebbles and the shells, Glided along the smooth and harden'd sand,

And in the worn and wild receptacles Work'd by the storms, yet work'd as it were plann'd,

In hollow halls, with sparry roofs and cells,

They turn'd to rest; and, each clasp'd by an arm,

Yielded to the deep twilight's purple charm.

Such kisses as belong to early days, Where heart, and soul, and sense, in concert move,

And the blood's lava, and the pulse a blaze,

Each kiss a heart-quake,-for a kiss's strength,

I think it must be reckon'd by its length.

By length I mean duration; theirs endured

Heaven knows how long-no doubt they never reckon'd;

And if they had, they could not have secured

The sum of their sensations to a second; They had not spoken; but they felt allured,

As if their souls and lips each other beckon'd,

Which, being join'd, like swarming bees they clung

Their hearts the flowers from whence the honey sprung.

They were alone, but not alone as they Who shut in chambers think it lone

liness;

The silent ocean, and the starlight bay, The twilight glow, which momently grew less,

The voiceless sands, and dropping caves, that lay

Around them, made them to each other

To them but mockeries of the past alone, And their revenge is as the tiger's spring,

Deadly, and quick, and crushing; yet, as real

Torture is theirs, what they inflict they feel.

They are right; for man, to man so oft unjust,

Is always so to women; one sole bond Awaits them, treachery is all their trust; Taught to conceal, their bursting hearts despond

Over their idol, till some wealthier lust Buys them in marriage-and what rests beyond?

A thankless husband, next a faithless lover,

Then dressing, nursing, praying, and all's over.

Some take a lover, some take drams or prayers,

Some mind their household, others dissipation,

Some run away, and but exchange their cares,

Losing the advantage of a virtuous station;

Few changes e'er can better their affairs, Theirs being an unnatural situation, From the dull palace to the dirty hovel : Some play the devil, and then write a novel.

Haidée was Nature's bride, and knew not this:

Haidée was Passion's

where the sun

child, born

Each was an angel, and earth paradise.

Oh, Love of whom great Cæsar was the suitor,

Titus the master, Antony the slave, Horace, Catullus, scholars, Ovid tutor, Sappho the sage blue-stocking, in whose grave

All those may leap who rather would be neuter

(Leucadia's rock still overlooks the wave)-

Oh, Love thou art the very god of evil, For, after all, we cannot call thee devil.

Thou mak'st the chaste connubial state precarious,

And jestest with the brows of mightiest men:

Cæsar and Pompey, Mahomet, Belisarius, Have much employ'd the muse of his