Or fill at once the realms of space,
A thing of eyes, that all survey?

II.

Eternal-boundless,-undecayed,

i.

A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies displayed,
Shall it survey, shall it recall:
Each fainter trace that Memory holds
So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the Soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.

III.

Before Creation peopled earth,

Its eye shall roll through chaos back;
And where the farthest heaven had birth,
The Spirit trace its rising track.
And where the future mars or makes,
Its glance dilate o'er all to be,
While Sun is quenched-or System breaks,
Fixed in its own Eternity.

IV.

Above or Love-Hope-Hate-or Fear,
It lives all passionless and pure :
An age shall fleet like earthly year;
Its years as moments shall endure.
Away-away-without a wing,

O'er all-through all-its thought shall fly, A nameless and eternal thing,

Forgetting what it was to die.

Seaham, 1815.

i. A conscious light that can pervade.—[MS. erased.]

1. [Compare the lines entitled "Belshazzar" (vide post, p. 421),

and Don Juan, Canto III, stanza lxv.]

And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

IV.

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.

And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,
They saw-but knew no more.

V.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,1
He heard the King's command,
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,—
The morrow proved it true.

VI.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,"
His kingdom passed away,
He, in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud, his robe of state,

His canopy the stone;
The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne !"

i. Oh king thy grave—.—[Copy erased.]

1. [It was not in his youth, but in extreme old age, that Daniel interpreted the "writing on the wall."]

WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU DEEM'ST IT TO BE. 399

SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS!

SUN of the sleepless! melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to Joy remembered well!
So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays:
A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant-clear-but, oh how cold!

WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

WERE

I.

my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, I need not have wandered from far Galilee ;

It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race.

II.

If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!
If the slave only sin-thou art spotless and free!

If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith-but in mine I will die.

III.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know ; In his hand is my heart and my hope-and in thine The land and the life which for him I resign.

Seaham, 1815.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.1

I.

OH, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding;

Revenge is lost in Agonyi.

And wild Remorse to rage succeeding.

Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

fil.

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading:
Ah! could'st thou-thou would'st pardon now,
Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

II.

And is she dead?—and did they dare
Obey my Frenzy's jealous raving? iv.
My Wrath but doomed my own despair:

The sword that smote her 's o'er me waving.—

But thou art cold, my murdered Love!

And this dark heart is vainly craving".

i. And what was rage is agony.—[MS. erased.]
Revenge is turned

ii. And deep Remorse

-[MS.]
.—[MS.]

iii. And what am I thy tyrant pleading.—[MS. crased.]
iv. Thou art not dead-they could not dare

Obey my jealous Frenzy's raving.—[MS.】

v. But yet in death my soul enslaving.—[MS. erased.]

1. [Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of body, which led to temporary derangement. See History of the Jews, by H. H. Milman, 1878, pp. 236, 237. See, too, Voltaire's drama, Mariamne, passim. Nathan, wishing "to be favoured with so many lines pathetic, some playful, others martial, etc. . . . one evening unfortunately (while absorbed for a moment in worldly affairs) requested so many dull lines-meaning plaintive." Byron instantly caught at the expression, and exclaimed, “Well, Nathan! you have at length set me an easy task," and before parting presented him with "these beautifully pathetic lines, saying, 'Here, Nathan, I think you will find these dull enough.""-Fugitive Pieces, 1829, p. 51.]