"Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain;

But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,

But neither heat, not frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been."
COLERIDGE'S Christabel.

FARE thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

Would that breast were bared before thee Where thy head so oft hath lain, While that placid sleep came o'er thee Which thou ne'er canst know again:

Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show !
Then thou wouldst at last discover
'T was not well to spurn it so.

Though the world for this commend thee

Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe:

Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;

Love may sink by slow decay, But by sudden wrench, believe not Hearts can thus be torn away:

Still thine own its life retaineth,

Still must mine, though bleeding, beat: And the undying thought which painetb Is-that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow Than the wail above the dead; Both shall live, but every morrow Wake us from a widow'd bed.

And when thou wouldst solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say Father!"
Though his care she must forego?
When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press'd,
Think of him whose prayer shall bless
thee,

Think of him thy love had bless'd!

Should her lineaments resemble
Those thou never more may'st see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken ;

Pride, which not a world could bow,

Bows to thee-by thee forsaken,
Even my soul forsakes me now:

But 't is done-all words are idle-
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.

Fare thee well! thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie,
Sear'd in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die.

March 18, 1816. April 4, 1816.

STANZAS FOR MUSIC

THERE be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters

Is thy sweet voice to me:
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming;

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep:

So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;

With a full but soft emotion,

Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

March 28, 1816. 1816.

Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!

Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,

And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,

Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

In my youth's summer I did sing of One, The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;

Again I seize the theme, then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing wind

Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find

The furrows of long thought, and driedup tears,

Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track be hind.

O'er which all heavily the journeying years

Plod the last sands of life,-where not a flower appears.

Since my young days of passion-joy, or pain,

Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,

And both may jar: it may be, that in vain
I would essay as I have sung to sing.
Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I

cling;

And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.

Something too much of this :-but now 't is past,

And the spell closes with its silent seal. Long absent HAROLD re-appears at last; He of the breast which fain no more would feel,

Wrung with the wounds which kill not but ne'er heal;

Yet Time, who changes all, had alter'd him

In soul and aspect as in age: years steal Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb;

And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen,

Entering with every step he took through many a scene.

Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'a Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd And sheath'd with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind; And he, as one, might 'midst the many stand

Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find

Fit speculation; such as in strange land He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand.

But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek

To wear it? who can curiously behold The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek,

Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?

Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold

The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb ?

Harold, once more within the vortex, roll'd

On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime.

But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man; with whom he held

Little in common; untaught to submit His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell'd

In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompell'd,

He would not yield dominion of his

mind