There rose a Carlo Dolce or a Titian,

Or wilder group of savage Salvatore's

There danced Albano's boys, and here the sea shone ·
In Vernet's ocean lights; and there the stories
Of martyrs awed, as Spagnoletto tainted

His brush with all the blood of all the sainted.

There sweetly spread a landscape of Loraine;
There Rembrandt made his darkness equal light,
Or gloomy Caravaggio's gloomier stain

Bronzed o'er some lean and stoic Anchorite :-
But lo a Teniers woos, and not in vain,

Your eyes to revel in a livelier sight:

His bell-mouthed goblet makes me feel quite Danish Or Dutch with thirst-What ho! a flask of Rhenish.

OCEAN.

Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place,

With one fair Spirit for my minister,

That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her!
Ye Elements !-in whose ennobling stir
I feel myself exalted-can ye not
Accord me such a being? Do I err

In deeming such inhabit many a spot?

Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar :
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal

* Salvator Rosa.

From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore ;-upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay. The armaments which thunder-strike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals; The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?

Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:—not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' playTime writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark heaving ;-boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of Eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear, For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.

My task is done-my song hath ceased-my theme Has died into an echo; it is fit

The spell should break of this protracted dream. The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath lit My midnight lamp-and what is writ, is writWould it were worthier! but I am not now That which I have been-and my visions flit

Less palpably before me—and the glow Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering, faint, and low.

PARISINA'S MEETING WITH HER LOVER.

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 passed 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 feared, 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.

FATRIOT MARTYRS.

They never fail who die

In a great cause: the block may soak their gore;
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls—

But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct

The world at last to freedom! What were we,
If Brutus had not lived? He died in giving
Rome liberty, but left a deathless lesson-
A name which is a virtue, and a soul
Which multiplies itself throughout all time,
When wicked men wax mighty, and a state
Turns servile.

WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE.

Dear object of defeated care!
Though now of Love and thee bereft,
To reconcile me with despair

Thine image and my tears are left.

'Tis said with Sorrow Time can cope;
But this I feel can ne'er be true;
For by the death-blow of my Hope
My Memory immortal grew.

THE PIRATES' SONG.

"O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
These are our realms, no limits to their sway-
Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.
Ours the wild life in tumult still to range
From toil to rest, and joy in every change.
Oh! who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave!
Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave;
Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease!
Whom slumber soothes not-pleasure cannot please-
Oh! who can tell? save he whose heart hath tried
And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide,