Save a scatter'd scalp or bone:
And down came blazing rafters, strown
Around, and many a falling stone,
Deeply dinted in the clay,

All blacken'd there and reeking lay.
All the living things that heard

That deadly earth-shock disappear'd :
The wild birds flew; the wild dogs fled,
And howling left the unburied dead;
The camels from their keepers broke;
The distant steer forsook the yoke-
The nearer steed plunged o'er the plain,
And burst his girth, and tore his rein;
The bull-frog's note, from out the marsh,
Deep-mouth'd arose, and doubly harsh:
The wolves yell'd on the cavern'd hill
Where echo roll'd in thunder still;
The jackal's troop, in gather'd cry,*
Bay'd from afar complainingly,
With a mix'd and mournful sound,
Like crying babe, and beaten hound:
With sudden wing, and ruffled breast,
The eagle left his rocky nest,

And mounted nearer to the sun,

*

The clouds beneath him seem'd so dun;
Their smoke assail'd his startled beak,
And made him higher soar and shriek-
Thus was Corinth lost and won!

THERE'S not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay "Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so

fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess:
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again.

I believe I have taken a poetical license to transplant the jackal from Asia. In Greece I never saw nor heard these animals; but among the ruins of Ephesus I have heard them by hundreds. They haunt ruins, and follow armies.-B.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes

down;

It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,

Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;

'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath,

All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath.

Oh! could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,

Or

weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanish'd scene; As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though

they be,

So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

March, 1815.

PARISIN A.*

ΤΟ

SCROPE BERDMORE DAVIES, ESQ.,

THE FOLLOWING POEM IS INSCRIBED,

BY ONE WHO HAS LONG ADMIRED HIS TALENTS AND VALUED HIS

FRIENDSHIP.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE following poem is grounded on a circumstance mentioned in Gibbon's "Antiquities of the House of Brunswick." I am aware, that in modern times the delicacy or fastidiousness of the reader may deem such subjects unfit for the purposes of poetry. The Greek dramatists, and some of the best of our old English writers, were of a different opinion: as Alfieri and Schiller have also been, more recently, upon the Continent. The following extract will explain the facts on which the story is founded. The name of Azo is substituted for Nicholas, as more metrical.

"Under the reign of Nicholas III., Ferrara was polluted with a domestic tragedy. By the testimony of an attendant, and his own observation, the Marquis of Este discovered the incestuous loves of his wife Parisina, and Hugo his bastard son, a beautiful and valiant youth. They were beheaded in the castle by the sentence of a father and husband, who published his shame, and survived their execution. He was unfortunate, if they were guilty; if they were innocent, he was still more unfortunate; nor is there any possible situation in which I can sincerely approve the last act of the justice of a parent."-Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. p. 470.

* The facts on which the present poem was grounded are to be found in Frizzi's "History of Ferrara."

PARISINA.

I.

IT is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour when lovers' vows

Seem sweet in every whisper'd word;
And gentle winds, and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the heaven that clear obscure,
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
Which follows the decline of day,

As twilight melts beneath the moon away.

II.

But it is not to list to the waterfall

That Parisina leaves her hall,

And it is not to gaze on the heavenly light,
That the lady walks in the shadow of night;
And if she sits in Este's bower,

"Tis not for the sake of its full-blown flower-
She listens-but not for the nightingale-
Though her ear expects as soft a tale.

There glides a step through the foliage thick,

And her cheek grows pale-and her heart beats quick.

There whispers a voice through the rustling leaves,

And her blush returns, and her bosom heaves:

A moment more-and they shall meet

'Tis past-her lover's at her feet.

III..

And what unto them is the world beside,
With all its change of time and tide ?
Its living things-its earth and sky-
Are nothing to their mind and eye.
And heedless as the dead are they

Of aught around, above, beneath.
As if all else had pass'd away,

They only for each other breathe;

Their very sighs are full of joy
So deep, that did it not decay,
That happy madness would destroy
The hearts which feel its fiery sway:
Of guilt, of peril, do they deem

In that tumultuous tender dream?
Who that have felt that passion's power,
Or paused, or fear'd, in such an hour?
Or thought how brief such moments last?
But yet they are already past.

Alas! we must awake before

We know such vision comes no more.

IV.

With many a lingering look they leave
The spot of guilty gladness past;
And though they hope, and vow, they grieve,
As if that parting were the last.

The frequent sigh-the long embrace

The lip that there would cling for ever,

While gleams on Parisina's face

The Heaven she fears will not forgive her,
As if each calmly conscious star
Beheld her frailty from afar-

The frequent sigh, the long embrace,
Yet binds them to their trysting-place.
But it must come, and they must part
In fearful heaviness of heart,
With all the deep and shuddering chill
Which follows fast the deeds of ill.

V.

And Hugo is gone to his lonely bed,
To covet there another's bride;
But she must lay her conscious head

A husband's trusting heart beside.
But fever'd in her sleep she seems,
And red her cheek with troubled dreams,
And mutters she in her unrest

A name she dare not breathe by day,
And clasps her lord unto the breast
Which pants for one away:
And he to that embrace awakes,
And, happy in the thought, mistakes
That dreaming sigh, and warm caress,
For such as he was wont to bless;
And could in very fondness weep
O'er her who loves him even in sleep.

VI.

He clasp'd her sleeping to his heart,
And listen'd to each broken word:
He hears-Why doth Prince Azo start,
As if the Archangel's voice he heard?
And well he may-a deeper doom
Could scarcely thunder o'er his tomb,