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50

55

Is it some yet imperial hope,
That with such change can calmly cope ?

Or dread of death alone ?
To die a prince-or live a slave-
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!
He who of old would rend the oak,

Dreamed not of the rebound :
Chained by the trunk he vainly broke-

Alone-how looked he round ?
Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,

„And darker fate hast found :
He fell, the forest prowlers' prey ;
But thou must eat thy heart away!
The Roman, when his burning heart

Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,

In savage grandeur, home-
He dared depart in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,

Yet left him such a doom !
His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandoned power.
The Spaniard, when the lust of sway

Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,

An empire for a cell ;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,

His dotage trifled well :
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.
But thou—from thy reluctant hand

The thunderbolt is wrung

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Too late thou leav'st the high command

To which thy weakness clung ;
All Evil Spirit as thou art,
It is enough to grieve the heart,

To see thine own unstrung ;
To think that God's fair world hath been
The footstool of a thing so mean!

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And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,

Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb,

And thanked him for a throne !
Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear

In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind !

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Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,

Nor written thus in vain
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,

Or deepen every stain :
If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,

To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?

Weighed in the balance, hero dust

Is vile as vulgar clay :
Thy scales, Mortality, are just

To all that pass away:
But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,

To dazzle and dismay:
Nor deemed Contempt could thus make mirth
Of these, the conquerors of the earth.

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IIO

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,

Thy still imperial bride,
How bears her breast the torturing hour?

Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless Homicide ?
If still she loves thee, hoard that gem;
'Tis worth thy vanished diadem!

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Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,

And gaze upon the sea ;
That element may meet thy smile-

It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all-idle hand,
In loitering mood upon the sand,

That Earth is now as free,
That Corinth's pedagogue hath now
Transferred his by-word to thy brow.

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Thou Timour! in his captive's cage

What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prisoned rage?

But one—The world was mine!'
Unless, like he of Babylon,
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,

Life will not long confine
That spirit poured so widely forth-
So long obeyed-so little worth !

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Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,

Wilt thou withstand the shock? And share with him, the unforgiven,

His vulture and his rock! Foredoomed by God--by man accurst,

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And that last act, though not thy worst,

The very Fiend's arch-mock ;
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died !

Lord Byron.

CCXIV

SONG.

FOR THE ANNIVERSARY MEETING OF THE PITT CLUB OF SCOTLAND, 1814.

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O dread was the time, and more dreadful the omen,

When the brave on Marengo lay slaughtered in vain, And beholding broad Europe bowed down by her foemen,

Pitt closed in his anguish the map of her reign! Not the fate of broad Europe could bend his brave spirit 5

To take for his country the safety of shame; O then in her triumph remember his merit,

And hallow the goblet that flows to his name.
Round the husbandman's head, while he traces the furrow,

The mists of the winter may mingle with rain,
He may plough it with labour, and sow it in sorrow,

And sigh while he fears he has sowed it in vain;
He may die ere his children shall reap in their gladness,

But the blithe harvest-home shall remember his claim ; And their jubilee-shout shall be softened with sadness, 15

While they hallow the goblet tlıat flow's to his name. Though anxious and timeless his life was expended,

In foils for our Country preserved by his care, Though he died ere one ray o'er the nations ascended,

To light the long darkness of doubt and despair;
The storms he endured in our Britain's December,

The perils his wisdom foresaw and o'ercame,
For her glory's rich harvest shall Britain remember

And hallow the goblet that flows to his name.

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Nor forget this gray head, who, all dark in affliction,

Is deaf to the tale of our victories won,
And to sounds the most dear to paternal affection,

The shout of his people applauding his son;
By his firmness unmoved in success or disaster,
By his long reign of virtue, remember his claim !

30 With our tribute to Pitt join the praise of his Master,

Though a tear stain the goblet that flows to his name. Yet again fill the wine-cup, and change the sad measure,

The rites of our grief and our gratitude paid, To our Prince, to our Heroes, devote the bright treasure, 35

The wisdom that planned, and the zeal that obeyed ! Fill Wellington's cup till it beam like his glory,

Forget not our own brave Dalhousie and Græme, A thousand years hence hearts shall bound at their story, And hallow the goblet that flows to their fame.

40 Sir Walter Scott.

CCXV

TO THE MEMORY OF PIETRO D'ALESSANDRO,

SECRETARY TO THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT OF SICILY IN 1848, WHO DIED AN

EXILE AT MALTA IN JANUARY 1855.

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Beside the covered grave
Linger the exiles, though their task is done.
Yes, brethren ; from your band one more is gone,
A good man and a brave.
Scanty the rites, and train ;
How many' of all the storied marbles, set
In all thy churches, City of La Valette,
Hide nobler heart and brain ?
Ah ! had his soul been cold,
Tempered to make a sycophant or spy,
To love hard truth less than an easy lie,
His country less than gold, -

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