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TO THYRZA.

ADIEU, ADIEU! MY NATIVE SHORE.

ONE struggle more, and I am free

From pangs that rend my heart in twain; One last long sigh to love and thee, Then back to busy life again.

It suits me well to mingle now

With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below,

What future grief can touch me more?

Then bring me wine-the banquet bring;
Man was not form'd to live alone
I'll be that light unmeaning thing

That smiles with all, and weeps with none. It was not thus in days more dear—

It never would have been, but thou Hast fled, and left me lonely here; Thou'rt nothing, all are nothing now.

In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!

The smile that sorow fain would wear But mocks the wo that lurks beneath, Like roses o'er a sepulchre. Though gay companions o'er the bowl Dispel a while the sense of ill; Though pleasure fires the maddening soul, The heart-the heart is lonely still!

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"ADIEU, adieu! my native shore
Fades o'er the waters blue;
The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,
And shrieks the wild seamew.
Yon sun that sets upon the sea

We follow in his flight;
Farewell a while to him and thee,
My native land-Good-night!

"A few short hours, and he will rise
To give the morrow birth;

And I shall hail the main and skies,
But not my mother earth.
Deserted is my own good hall,

Its hearth is desolate;

Wild weeds are gathering on the wall;
My dog howls at the gate.

"Come hither, hither, my little page!
Why dost thou weep and wail?
Or dost thou dread the billows' rage,
Or tremble at the gale?

But dash the tear-drop from thine eye;
Our ship is swift and strong:

Our fleetest falcon scarce can fly
More merrily along."

"Let winds be shrill, let waves roll high,

I fear not wave nor wind;

Yet marvel not, Sir Childe, that I
Am sorrowful in mind;

For I have from my father gone,
A mother whom I love,

And have no friend, save these alone,
But thee-and one above.

"My father bless'd me fervently,

Yet did not much complain;
But sorely will my mother sigh
Till I come back again.”—
"Enough, enough, my little lad!
Such tears become thine eye;
If I thy guileless bosom had,
Mine own would not be dry.

"Come hither, hither, my staunch yeoman, Why dost thou look so pale?

Or dost thou dread a French foeman?
Or shiver at the gale?"
"Deem'st thou I tremble for my life?

Sir Childe, I'm not so weak;
But thinking on an absent wife

Will blanch a faithful cheek.

"My spouse and boys dwell near thy hall, Along the bordering lake,

And when they on their father call,
What answer shall she make?"-
"Enough, enough, my yeoman good,
Thy grief let none gainsay;
But I, who am of lighter mood,
Will laugh to flee away.

"For who would trust the seeming sighs

Of wife or paramour?

Fresh feres will dry the bright blue eyes

We late saw streaming o'er.
For pleasures past I do not grieve,
Nor perils gathering near;
My greatest grief is that I leave

No thing that claims a tear.

"And now I'm in the world alone,
Upon the wide, wide sea;
But why should I for others groan,

When none will sigh for me?
Perchance my dog will whine in vain,

Till fed by stranger hands; But long ere I come back again,

He'd tear me where he stands. "With thee, my bark, I'll swiftly go

Athwart the foaming brine;

Nor care what land thou bear'st me to,
So not again to mine.
Welcome, welcome, ye dark blue waves!
And when you fail my sight,
Welcome, ye deserts, and ye caves!
My native land-Good-night!”

THE EXECUTION OF HUGO.

THE Convent bells are ringing,
But mournfully and slow;

In the gray square turrent swinging,
With a deep sound, to and fro.
Heavily to the heart they go!

Hark! the hymn is singing

The song for the dead below,

Or the living who shortly shall be so!

For a departing being's soul

[knoll:

The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells
He is near his mortal goal;
Kneeling at the friar's knee;
Sad to hear-and piteous to see-
Kneeling on the bare cold ground,

With the block before and the guards around-
And the headman with his bare arm ready,
That the blow may be both swift and steady,
Feels if the axe be sharp and true-
Since he set its edge anew:

While the crowd in a speechless circle gather
To see the son fall by the doom of the father!

It is a lovely hour as yet

Before the summer sun shall set,
Which rose upon that heavy day,
And mock'd it with his steadiest ray;
And his evening beams are shed
Full on Hugo's fated head,
As his last confession pouring
To the monk, his doom deploring
In penitential holiness,

He bends to hear his accents bless
With absolution such as may
Wipe our mortal stains away.

That high sun on his head did glisten,
As he there did bow and listen-

And the rings of chesnut hair
Curl'd half down his neck so bare;
But brighter still the beam was thrown
Upon the axe which near him shone
With a clear and ghastly glitter-
Oh! that parting hour was bitter!
Even the stern stood chill'd with awe;
Dark the crime, and just the law-
Yet they shudder'd as they saw.

The parting prayers are said and over
Of that false son-and daring lover!
His beads and sins are all recounted,
His hours to their last minute mounted-
His mantling cloak before was stripp'd,
His bright brown locks must now be clipp'd;
"T is done-all closely are they shorn-
The vest which till this moment worn-
The scarf which Parisina gave-
Must not adorn him to the grave,
Even that must now be thrown aside,
And o'er his eyes the kerchief tied;
But no-that last indignity

Shall ne'er approach his haughty eye.
All feelings seemingly subdued,

In deep disdain were half-renew'd,
When headman's hands prepared to bind
Those eyes which would not brook such blind,

As if they dared not look on death.

"No-yours my forfeit blood and breath-
These hands are chain'd-but let me die
At least with an unshackled eye-
Strike:"-and as the word he said,
Upon the block he bow'd his head;
These the last accents Hugo spoke
"Strike"-and flashing fell the stroke. -
Roll'd the head-and, gushing, sunk
Back the stain'd and heaving trunk
In the dust, which each deep vein
Slaked with its ensanguined rain;
His eyes and lips a moment quiver,
Convulsed and quick-then fix'd for ever.
He died as erring man should die,

Without display, without parade;
Meekly had he bow'd and pray'd,
As not disdaining priestly aid,
Nor desperate of all hope on high.
And while before the prior kneeling,
His heart was wean'd from earthly feeling;
His wrathful sire-his paramour-
What were they in such an hour?
No more reproach-no more despair;

No thought but heaven-no word but prayer

Save the few which from him broke,
When, bared to meet the headman's stroke,
He claim'd to die with eyes unbound,

His sole adieu to those around.

Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's bosom held his breath;
But yet, afar, from man to man,
A cold electric shiver ran,

As down the deadly blow descended
On him whose life and love thus ended;
And with a hushing sound compress'd,
A sigh shrunk back on every breast;

But no more thrilling noise rose there,
Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen
shock.

Save one-what cleaves the silent air

So madly shrill, so passing wild?

That, as a mother's o'er her child,
Done to death by sudden blow,
To the sky these accents go,
Like a soul's in endless wo.
Through Azo's palace-lattice driven,
That horrid voice ascends to heaven,
And every eye is turn'd thereon;
But sound and sight alike are gone!
It was a woman's shrick-and ne'er
In madlier accents rose despair;
And those who heard it, as it past,
In mercy wish'd it were the last.
Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour,
No more in palace, hall, or bower,
Was Parisina heard or seen :
Her name as if she ne'er had been-
Was banish'd from each lip and ear,
Like words of wantonness or fear;
And from Prince Azo's voice, by none
Was mention heard of wife or son;
No tomb-no memory had they;
Theirs was unconsecrated clay;

At least the knight's who died that day:
But Parisina's fate lies hid

Like dust beneath the coffin lid:
Whether in convent she abode,
And won to heaven her dreary road,
By blighted and remorseful years

Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears;
Or if she fell by bowl or steel,

For that dark love she dared to feel;

Or if, upon the moment smote,
She died by tortures less remote;
Like him she saw upon the block,

With heart that shared the headman's shock,
In quicken'd brokenness that came,
In pity, o'er her shatter'd frame,

None knew-and none can ever know:
But whatsoe'er its end below,
Her life began and closed in wo!
And Azo found another bride,
And goodly sons grew by his side;
But none so lovely and so brave
As him who wither'd in the grave;
Or if they were-on his cold eye
Their growth but glanced unheeded by,
Or noticed with a smother'd sigh.
`But never tear his cheek descended,
And never smile his brow unbended,
And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought
The intersected lines of thought;
Those furrows which the burning share
Of sorrow ploughs untimely there;
Scars of the lacerating mind,
Which the soul's war doth leave behind.
He was past all mirth or wo:
Nothing more remain'd below
But sleepless nights and heavy days;
A mind all dead to scorn or praise,

A heart which shunn'd itself-and yet
That would not yield-nor could forget,
Which, when it least appear'd to melt,
Intensely thought-intensely felt:
The deepest ice which ever froze
Can only o'er the surface close-
The living stream lies quick below,
And flows-and cannot cease to flow.
Still was his seal'd-up bosom haunted
By thoughts which nature hath implanted;
Too deeply rooted thence to vanish,
Howe'er our stifled tears we banish;
When, struggling as they rise to start,
We check those waters of the heart;
They are not dried-those tears unshed
But flow back to the fountain-head,
And, resting in their spring more pure,
For ever in its depth endure,
Unseen, unwept, but uncongeal'd,
And cherish'd most where least reveal'd.
With inward starts of feeling left,
To throb o'er those of life bereft;
Without the power to fill again
The desert gap which made his pain;
Without the hope to meet them where
United souls shall gladness share,
With all the consciousness that he
Had only pass'd a just decree;
That they had wrought their doom of ill;
Yet Azo's age was wretched still.
The tainted branches of the tree,

If lopp'd with care, a strength may give,
By which the rest shall bloom and live
All greenly fresh and wildly free:
But if the lightning, in its wrath,

The waving boughs with fury scathe,
The massy trunk the ruin feels,
And never more a leaf reveals.

DEATH OF LARA.

BENEATH a lime, remoter from the scene,
Where but for him that strife had never been,
A breathing, but devoted warrior lay:
"T was Lara, bleeding fast from life away.
His follower once, and now his only guide,
Kneels Kaled, watchful o'er his welling side, [rush,
And with his scarf would stanch the tides that
With each convulsion, in a blacker gush;
And then, as his faint breathing waxes low,
In feebler, not less fatal tricklings flow:

He scarce can speak, but motions him 'tis vain,
And merely adds another throb to pain.
He clasps the hand that pang which would assuage,
And sadly smiles his thanks to that dark page,
Who nothing fears, nor feels, nor heeds, nor sees,
Save that damp brow which rests upon his knees;
Save that pale aspect, where the eye, though dim,
Held all the light that shone on earth for him.

The foe arrives, who long had search'd the field, Their triumph naught till Lara too should yield; They would remove him, but they see 't were vain, And he regards them with a calm disdain,

That rose to reconcile him with his fate,
And that escape to death from living hate:
And Otho comes, and, leaping from his steed,
Looks on the bleeding foe that made him bleed,
And questions of his state; he answers not,
Scarce glances on him as on one forgot,
And turns to Kaled:-each remaining word
They understood not, if distinctly heard;
His dying tones are in that other tongue,
To which some strange remembrance wildly clung.
They speak of other scenes, but what-is known
To Kaled, whom their meaning reach'd alone;
And he replied, though faintly, to their sound,
While gazed the rest in dumb amazement round:
They seem'd even then-that twain-unto the last
To half-forget the present in the past;

To share between themselves some separate fate,
Whose darkness none beside should penetrate. [tone
Their words, though faint, were many-from the
Their import those who heard could judge alone;
From this, you might have deem'd young Kaled's

death

More near than Lara's, by his voice and breath,
So sad, so deep, and hesitating broke
The accents his scarce-moving pale lips spoke;
But Lara's voice, though low, at first was clear
And calm, till murmuring death gasp'd hoarsely
But from his visage little could we guess, [near;
So unrepentant, dark, and passionless;
Save that, when struggling nearer to his last,
Upon that page his eye was kindly cast;
And once, as Kaled's answering accents ceased,
Rose Lara's hand, and pointed to the east,
Where (as then the breaking sun from high
Roll'd back the clouds) the morrow caught his eye,
Or that 'twas chance, or some remember'd scene,
That raised his arm to point where such had been,
Scarce Kaled seem'd to know, but turn'd away,
As if his heart abhorr'd that coming day;
And shrunk his glance before that morning light,
To look on Lara's brow-where all grew night.
Yet sense seem'd left, though better were its loss;
For when one near display'd the absolving cross,
And proffer'd to his touch the holy bead,

Of which his parting soul might own the need,
He look'd upon it with an eye profane, [disdain:
And smiled-Heaven pardon! if 't were with
And Kaled, though he spoke not, nor withdrew
From Lara's face his fix'd, despairing view,
With brow repulsive, and with gesture swift,
Flung back the hand which held the sacred gift,
As if such but disturb'd the expiring man,
Nor seem'd to know his life but then began,
That life of immortality, secure

To none, save them whose faith in Christ is sure.

But gasping heaved the breath that Lara drew, And dull the film along his dim eye grew; [o'er His limbs stretch'd fluttering, and his head droop'd The weak, yet still untiring knee that bore; He press'd the hand he held upon his heart— It beats no more, but Kaled will not part With the cold grasp, but feels, and feels in vain, For that faint throb which answers not again. "It beats!"-away, thou dreamer! he is goneIt once was Lara which thou look'st upon.

He gazed, as if not yet had pass'd away
The haughty spirit of that humble clay;
And those around have roused him from his trance,
But cannot tear from thence his fixed glance;
And when, in raising him from where he bore
Within his arms the form that felt no more,
He saw the head his breast would still sustain,
Roll down like earth to earth upon the plain;
He did not dash himself thereby, nor tear
The glossy tendrils of his raven hair,

But strove to stand and gaze, but reel'd and fell,
Scarce breathing more than that he loved so well-
Than that he loved! Oh! never yet beneath
The breast of man such trusty love may breathe.
That trying moment hath at once revealed
The secret long and yet but half-concealed;
In baring to revive that lifeless breast,
Its grief seem'd ended, but the sex confess'd;
And life return'd, and Kaled felt no shame-
What now to her was womanhood or fame?

And Lara sleeps not where his fathers sleep,
But where he died his grave was dug as deep;
Nor is his mortal slumber less profound,
Though priest nor bless'd nor marble deck'd the
mound;

And he was mourn'd by one whose quiet grief,
Less loud, outlasts a people's for their chief.
Vain was all question ask'd her of the past,
And vain e'en menace-silent to the last;
She told nor whence, nor why she left behind
Her all for one who seem'd but little kind.
Why did she love him? Curious fool!-be still-—
Is human love the growth of human will?
To her he might be gentleness; the stern
Have deeper thoughts than your dull eyes discern,
And when they love, your smilers guess not how
Beats the strong heart, though less the lips avow.
They were not common links, that form'd the chain
That bound to Lara Kaled's heart and brain,
But that wild tale she brook'd not to unfold,
And seal'd is now each lip that could have told.

They laid him in the earth, and on his breast,
Besides the wound that sent his soul to rest,
They found the scatter'd dints of many a scar,
Which were not planted there in recent war;
Where'er had pass'd his summer years of life,
It seems they vanish'd in a land of strife;
But all unknown his glory or his guilt,
These only told that somewhere blood was spilt,
And Ezzelin, who might have spoke the past,
Return'd no more-that night appear'd his last.

Upon that night (a peasant's is the tale) A serf that cross'd the intervening vale, When Cynthia's light almost gave way to morn, And nearly veil'd in mist her waning horn; A serf, that rose betimes to thread the wood, And hew the bough that bought his children food, Pass'd by the river that divides the plain Of Otho's lands and Lara's broad domain: He heard a tramp-a horse and horseman broke From out the wood-before him was a cloak Wrapt round some burden at his saddle-bow, Bent was his head, and hidden was his brow. Roused by the sudden sight at such a time, And some foreboding that it might be crime,

Himself unheeded watch'd the stranger's course,
Who reach'd the river, bounded from his horse,
And lifting thence the burden which he bore,
Heaved up the bank, and dash'd it from the shore,
Then paused, and look'd, and turn'd, and seem'd
to watch,

And still another hurried glance would snatch,
And follow with his step the stream that flow'd,
As if even yet too much its surface show'd:
At once he started, stoop'd; around him strown,
The winter floods had scatter'd heaps of stone;
Of these the heaviest thence he gather'd there,
And slung them with a more than common care.
Meantime the serf had crept to where unseen
Himself might safely mark what this might mean.
He caught a glimpse, as of a floating breast,
And something glitter'd starlike on the vest,
But ere he well could mark the buoyant trunk,
A massy fragment smote it, and it sunk:
It rose again but indistinct to view,
And left the waters of a purple hue,
Then deeply disappear'd: the horseman gazed,
Till ebb'd the latest eddy it had raised;
Then turning, vaulted on his pawing steed,
And instant sparr'd him into panting speed.
His face was mask'd-the features of the dead,
If dead it were, escap'd the observer's dread;
But if in sooth a star its bosom bore,

Such is the badge that knighthood ever wore,
And such 'tis known Sir Ezzelin had worn
Upon the night that led to such a morn.
If thus he perish'd, Heaven receive his soul!
His undiscover'd limbs to ocean roll;
And charity upon the hope would dwell,
It was not Lara's hand by which he fell.

And Kaled-Lara-Ezzelin, are gone,
Alike without their monumental stone!
The first, all efforts vainly strove to wean [been;
From lingering where her chieftain's blood had
Grief had so tamed a spirit once so proud,
Her tears were few, her wailing never loud;
But furious would you tear her from the spot
Where yet she scarce believed that he was not,
Her eye shot forth with all the living fire
That haunts the tigress in her whelpless ire;
But left to waste her weary moments there,
She talk'd all idly unto shapes of air,
Such as the busy brain of sorrow paints,
And woos to listen to her fond complaints:
And she would sit beneath the very tree
Where lay his drooping head upon her knee;
And in that posture where she saw him fall,
His words, his looks, his dying grasp recall;
And she had shorn, but saved her raven hair,
And oft would snatch it from her bosom there,
And fold, and press it gently to the ground,
As if she stanch'd anew some phantom's wound.
Herself would question, and for him reply;
Then rising, start, and beckon him to fly
From some imagined spectre in pursuit:
Then seat her down upon some linden's root,
And hide her visage with her meager hand,
Or trace strange characters along the sand-
This could not last-she lies by him she loved;
Her tale untold-her truth too dearly proved.

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNA

CHERIB.

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the

sea,

When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,

That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd; And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

EVENING.

AVE Maria! blessed be the hour!

The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power

Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer. Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer!

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love! Ave Maria! may our spirits dare

Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!

[doveThose downcast eyes beneath the Almighty What though 'tis but a pictured image strikeThat painting is no idol, 't is too like.

Sweet hour of twilight!-in the solitude

Of the pine forest, and the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er, To where the last Cesarean fortress stood,

Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

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