But she is in the grave, where he, Her son, thy rival, soon shall be.

Her broken heart-my sever'd head-
Shall witness for thee from the dead
How trusty and how tender were
Thy youthful love-paternal care.
Tis true that I have done thee wrong.
But wrong for wrong:-this,-deem'd thy bride,
The other victim of thy pride,-
Thou know'st for me was destined long;
Thou saw'st, and covetedst her charms;
And with thy very crime-my birth-
Thou tauntedst me, as little worth;
A match ignoble for her arms,
Because, forsooth, I could not claim
The lawful heirship of thy name,
Nor sit on Este's lineal throne:

Yet, were a few short summers mine,

My name should more than Este's shine With honours all my own.

I will not plead the cause of crime,
Nor sue thee to redeem from time
A few brief hours or days that must
At length roll o'er my reckless dust;-
Such maddening moments as my past,
They could not, and they did not, last.
Albeit my birth and name be base,
And thy nobility of race
Disdain'd to deck a thing like me-

Yet in my lineaments they trace
Some features of my father's face,
And in my spirit-all of thee.
From thee this tamelessness of heart

From thee-nay, wherefore dost thou start? -
From thee in all their vigour came
My arm of strength, my soul of flame;
Thou didst not give me life alone,
But all that made me more thine own.
See what thy guilty love hath done!
Repaid thee with too like a son!
I am no bastard in my soul,
For that, like thine, abhorr'd control:
And for my breath, that hasty boon
Thou gav'st and wilt resume so soon,
I valued it no more than thou,
When rose thy casque above thy brow,

1 Haught haughty." Away, haught man, thou art insulting me."- SHAKSPEARE.

4

I sent for Marmion,' because it occurred to me, there might be a resemblance between part of Parisina' and a similar scene in the second canto of Marmion.' I fear there is, though I never thought of it before, and could hardly wish to imitate that which is inimitable. I wish you would ask Mr. Gifford whether I ought to say any thing upon it. I had completed the story on the passage from Gibbon, which indeed leads to a like scene naturally, without a thought of the kind; but it comes upon me not very comfortably."-Lord B. to Mr. M. Feb. 3. 1816. The scene referred to is the one in which Constance de Beverley appears before the conclave

And we, all side by side, have striven,
And o'er the dead our coursers driven:
The past is nothing-and at last
The future can but be the past;
Yet would I that I then had died;
For though thou work'dst my mother's ill,
And made thy own my destined bride,
I feel thou art my father still;
And, harsh as sounds thy hard decree,
"Tis not unjust, although from thee.
Begot in sin, to die in shame,

My life begun and ends the same:
As err'd the sire, so err'd the son,
And thou must punish both in one.
My crime seems worst to human view,
But God must judge between us too!"

XIV.

IIe ceased -and stood with folded arms,
On which the circling fetters sounded;
And not an ear but felt as wounded,
Of all the chiefs that there were rank'd,
When those dull chains in meeting clank'd;
Till Parisina's fatal charms 2

Again attracted every eye

Would she thus hear him doom'd to die.

She stood, I said, all pale and still,
The living cause of Hugo's ill:
Her eyes unmoved, but full and wide,
Not once had turn'd to either side.

Nor once did those sweet eyelids close,
Or shade the glance o'er which they rose.
But round their orbs of deepest blue
The circling white dilated grew-
And there with glassy gaze she stood
As ice were in her curdled blood;
But every now and then a tear

So large and slowly gather'd slid

From the long dark fringe of that fair lid,

It was a thing to see, not hear!

And those who saw, it did surprise,

Such drops could fall from human eyes.

To speak she thought-the imperfect note
Was choked within her swelling throat,
Yet seem'd in that low hollow groan
Her whole heart gushing in the tone.
It ceased-again she thought to speak,
Then burst her voice in one long shriek,"
And to the earth she fell like stone

Or statue from its base o'erthrown,

More like a thing that ne'er had life,

A monument of Azo's wife,

Than her, that living guilty thing,
Whose every passion was a sting,

Which urged to guilt, but could not bear
That guilt's detection and despair.

When midnight storms are mustering wrath.
She fear'd-she felt that something ill
Lay on her soul, so deep and chill;
That there was sin and shame she knew;
That some one was to die - but who?
She had forgotten: - did she breathe?
Could this be still the earth beneath,
The sky above, and men around;

Or were they fiends who now so frown'd
On one, before whose eyes each eye
Till then had smiled in sympathy?
All was confused and undefined
To her all-jarr'd and wandering mind;
A chaos of wild hopes and fears:
And now in laughter, now in tears,
But madly still in each extreme,

She strove with that convulsive dream,
For so it seem'd on her to break :
Oh! vainly must she strive to wake!

XV.

The Convent bells are ringing,

But mournfully and slow;
In the grey square turret 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

The death-hymn peals and the hollow bells knoll :
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 headsman 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!

XVI.

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

[The grand part of this poem is that which describes the execution of the rival son; and in which, though there is no pomp, either of language or of sentiment, and though every

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 chestnut 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 lawYet they shudder'd as they saw.

XVII.

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;
"Tis 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 headsman's hands prepared to bind

Those eyes which would not brook such blind,

As if they dared not look on deatn.
"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 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 headsman's stroke,
He claim'd to die with eyes unbound,

His sole adieu to those around. I

thing is conceived and expressed with the utmost simplicity and directness, there is a spirit of pathos and poetry to which it would not be easy to find many parallels, — JEFFREY.]

XVIII.

Still as the lips that closed in death,
Each gazer's boson 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 woe.
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 shriek-and ne'er
In madlier accents rose despair;

And those who heard it, as it pass'd,
La mercy wish'd it were the last.

XIX.

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,
Sae died by tortures less remote,
Like him she saw upon the block,

With heart that shared the headsman'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 woe!

[In Parisina there is no tumult or stir. It is all sadness, and pity, and terror. There is too much of horror, perhaps, the circumstar ces; but the writing is beautiful throughout,

XX.

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 woe :
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,
Intently 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. 1

and the whole wrapped in a rich and redundant veil of poetry, where every thing breathes the pure essence of genius and sensibility. JEFFREY.]