Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done In youth she was all glory,-a new Tyre,- Statues of glass-all shiver'd-the long file But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse, See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car Of the o'ermastered victor stops, the reins Fall from his hands-his idle scimitar Starts from its belt-he rends his captive's chains, And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains. Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine, Thy choral memory of the bard divine, Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall. I loved her from my boyhood-She to me Was as a fairy city of the heart, Rising like water columns from the sea, Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart; And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art I can repeople with the past and of The present there is still for eye and thought, And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought; And of the happiest moments which were wrought From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught: But from their nature will the tannen grow 200 JUIT Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks, cotilom CT Rooted in barrenness, where nought below bling mit A Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shoeksen l'I Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk and mocks d7 The howling tempest, till its height and frameuft ei bo A Are worthy of the mountain from whose blocksam air Of bleak, gray, granite, into life it came, 19 mi979d7/ And grew a giant tree;--the mind may grow the same on I Existence may be borne, and the deep root meatmos adT Of life and sufferance make its firm abodeniz 979 bn A In bare and desolated bosoms: mute asg out is BOUT The camel labours with the heaviest load,loiy tuz. He 30 And the wolf dies in silence,--not bestow'd ydi ni neval In vain should such example be; if they, 997 197 T Things of ignoble or of savage mood, Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay #0917 ¿AT May temper it to bear, it is but for a day lasai rs d'i 17 All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd, ei noom 9JT Even by the sufferer; and, in each event, bivib isenma Ends. Some, with hope replenish'd and rebuoy dolg 70 Return to whence they came with like intent,I suid 10 And weave their web again; some, bow'd and benton I Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, balls M And perish with the reed on which they leant: 919W Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime, 9W According as their souls were form'd to sink or climbe16011 Ignia A d diW But ever and anon of griefs subdued Back on the heart the weight which it would fling A tone of music,-summer's eve-or spring, A flower-the wind-the Ocean-which shall wound, Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound; And how and why we know not, nor can trace When least we deem of such, calls up to view The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, The cold-the changed-perchance the dead-anew, The mourn'd, the loved, the lost-too many!-yet how few! But my soul wanders; I demand it back A ruin amidst ruins; there to track Fall'n states and buried greatness, o'er a land The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand, The commonwealth of kings, the men of Rome! Thou art the garden of the world, the home The moon is up, and yet it is not night- A single star is at her side, and reigns As Day and night contending were, until The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows, Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar Comes down upon the waters: all its hues, Their magical variety diffuse: And now they change; a paler shadow strews Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone, and all is gray. ROME. OH Rome! my country! city of the soul! A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay. The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness ? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress. The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire, She saw her glories star by star expire, And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, Where the car climb'd the capitol; far and wide Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void, O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, "here was, or is," where all is doubly night? THE OCEAN. 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. 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, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee, Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey/ The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convuls'd-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Dark heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime— Of the invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. |