Do thou persist: for, faint but in resolve,
And it were better thou had still remain'd
The slave of thine own slaves, who tear like curs
The fugitive, and flee from the pursuer!
And Opportunity, that empty wolf,

Flies at his throat who falls. Subdue thy actions
Even to the disposition of thy purpose,
And be that temper'd as the Ebro's steel:
And banish weak-eyed Mercy to the weak,
Whence she will greet thee with a gift of peace,
And not betray thee with a traitor's kiss,
As when she keeps the company of rebels,
Who think that she is fear. This do, lest we
Should fall as from a glorious pinnacle
In a bright dream, and wake as from a dream
Out of our worshipp'd state.

Unleash the sword and fire, that in their thirst
They may lick up that scum of schismatics.
I laugh at those weak rebels who, desiring
What we possess, still prate of christian peace,
As if those dreadful messengers of wrath,
Which play the part of God 'twixt right and wrong,
Should be let loose against innocent sleep
Of templed cities and the smiling fields,
For some poor argument of policy
Which touches our own profit or our pride,
Where indeed it were christian charity
To turn the cheek even to the smiter's hand:
And when our great Redeemer, when our God
Is scorn'd in his immediate ministers,
They talk of peace:

Such peace as Canaan found, let Scotland now.

And in the lightest and the least, may best Be seen the current of the coming wind.

QUEEN.

Your brain is overwrought with these deep thoughts;
Come, I will sing to you; let us go try
These airs from Italy,—and you shall see
A cradled miniature of yourself asleep,
Stamp'd on the heart by never-erring love;
Liker than any Vandyke ever made,

A pattern to the unborn age of thee,
Over whose sweet beauty I have wept for joy

A thousand times, and now should weep for sorrow,
Did I not think that after we were dead
Our fortunes would spring high in him, and that
The cares we waste upon our heavy crown
Would make it light and glorious as a wreath
Of heaven's beams for his dear innocent brow.

Of tempest! that wild pilot who shall guide
Hearts free as his, to realms as pure as thee,
Beyond the shot of tyranny! And thou,
Fair star, whose beam lies on the wide Atlantic,
Athwart its zones of tempest and of calm,
Bright as the path to a beloved home,
O light us to the isles of th' evening land!
Like floating Edens, cradled in the glimmer
Of sun-set, through the distant mist of
years
Tinged by departing Hope, they gleam. Lone regions,
Where power's poor dupes and victims, yet have never
Propitiated the savage fear of kings

With purest blood of noblest hearts; whose dew
Is yet unstain'd with tears of those who wake
To weep each day the wrongs on which it dawns;
Whose sacred silent air owns yet no echo
Of formal blasphemies; nor impious rites
Wrest man's free worship from the God who loves,
Towards the worm who envies us his love;
Receive thou young [
] of Paradise,

These exiles from the old and sinful world!
This glorious clime, this firmament whose lights
Dart mitigated influence through the veil

Of pale blue atmosphere; whose tears keep green

Baffled with blast of hope-consuming shame;
Nor evil joys which fire the vulgar breast,
And quench in speedy smoke its feeble flame,

Ilad left within his soul their dark unrest : Nor what religion fables of the grave Fear'd he,-Philosophy's accepted guest.

For none than he a purer heart could have,
Or that loved good more for itself alone;
Of nought in heaven or earth was he the slave.

What sorrow deep, and shadowy, and unknown, Sent him, a hopeless wanderer, through mankind?If with a human sadness he did groan,

tle had a gentle yet aspiring mind; Just, innocent, with varied learning fed; And such a glorious consolation find

In others' joy, when all their own is dead: He loved, and labour'd for his kind in grief, And yet, unlike all others, it is said,

That from such toil he never found relief: Although a child of fortune and of power, Of an ancestral name the orphan chief.

His soul had wedded wisdom, and her dower Is love and justice, clothed in which he sate Apart from men, as in a lonely tower,

Pitying the tumult of their dark estate-
Yet even in youth did he not e'er abuse

The strength of wealth or thought, to consecrate

Those false opinions which the harsh rich use To blind the world they famish for their pride; Nor did he hold from any man his dues,

But like a steward in honest dealings tried,
With those who toil'd and wept, the poor and wise
His riches and his cares he did divide.

Fearless he was, and scorning all disguise, What he dared do or think, though men might start, lle spoke with mild yet unaverted eyes;

Liberal he was of soul, and frank of heart,
And to his many friends-all loved him well-
Whate'er he knew or felt he would impart,

If words he found those inmost thoughts to tell;
If not, he smiled or wept; and his weak foes
He neither spurn'd nor hated: though with fell

And mortal hate their thousand voices rose,
They past like aimless arrows from his ear-
Nor did his heart or mind its portal close

To those, or them, or any whom life's sphere
May comprehend within its wide array.
What sadness made that vernal spirit sere?
He knew not. Though his life, day after day,
Was failing like an unreplenish'd stream,
Though in his eyes a cloud and burthen lay,

Through which his soul, like Vesper's serene beam
Piercing the chasms of ever rising clouds,
Shone, softly burning; though his lips did seem

Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods;
And through his sleep, and o'er each waking hour,
Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes,

Were driven within him, by some secret power,
Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar,
Like lights and sounds, from haunted tower to tower,

O'er castled mountains borne, when tempest's war

Is levied by the night-contending winds,
And the pale dalesmen watch with eager ear;-

Though such were in his spirit, as the fiends Which wake and feed on ever-living woe,— What was this grief, which ne'er in other minds

A mirror found,-he knew not-none could know;
But on whoe'er might question him he turn'd
The light of his frank eyes, as if to show

He knew not of the grief within that burn'd,
But asked forbearance with a mournful look;
Or spoke in words from which none ever learn'd

The cause of his disquietude; or shook
With spasms of silent passion; or turn'd pale:
So that his friends soon rarely undertook

To stir his secret pain without avail;-
For all who knew and loved him then perceived
That there was drawn an adamantine veil

Between his heart and mind,-both unrelieved Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife. Some said that he was mad, others believed

That memories of an antenatal life
Made this, where now he dwelt, a penal hell;
And others said that such mysterious grief

From God's displeasure, like a darkness, fell
On souls like his, which own'd no higher law
Than love; love calm, stedfast, invincible

By mortal fear or supernatural awe;
And others,-« T is the shadow of a dream
Which the veil'd eye of memory never saw,

.. But through the soul's abyss, like some dark stream Through shatter'd mines and caverns underground Rolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam

A fertile island in the barren sea,
One mariner who has survived his mates
Many a drear month in a great ship—so he,

With soul-sustaining songs, and sweet debates
Of ancient lore, there fed his lonely being:-
The mind becomes that which it contemplates, »—

And thus Zonoras, by forever seeing
Their bright creations, grew like wisest men;
And when he heard the crash of nations fleeing

A bloodier power than ruled thy ruins then,
O sacred Hellas! many weary years
He wander'd till the path of Laian's glen
Was grass-grown-and the unremember'd tears
Were dry in Laian for their honour'd chief,
Who fell in Byzant, pierced by Moslem spears:-

|

And as the lady look'd with faithful grief
From her high lattice o'er the rugged path,
Where she once saw that horseman toil, with brief

And blighting hope, who with the news of death Struck body and soul as with a mortal blight, She saw beneath the chesnuts, far beneath,

The Author was pursuing a fuller development of the ideal character of Athanase, when it struck him that in an attempt at extreme refinement and analysis, his conceptions might be betrayed into the assuming a morbid character. The reader will judge whether he is a loser or gainer by this difference.-Author's Note.

An old man toiling up, a weary wight;
And soon within her hospitable hall
She saw his white hairs glittering in the light

Of the wood fire, and round his shoulders fall;
And his wan visage and his wither'd mien
Yet calm and [
] and majestical.

And Athanase, her child, who must have been Then three years old, sate opposite and gazed.

FRAGMENT II.

Such was Zonoras; and as daylight finds
An amaranth glittering on the path of frost,
When autumn nights have nipt all weaker kinds,

Thus had his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tost,
Shone truth upon Zonoras; and he fill'd
From fountains pure, nigh overgrown and lost,

The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child, With soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore And philosophic wisdom, clear and mild.

And sweet and subtle talk they evermore, The pupil and master shared; until, Sharing the undiminishable store,

The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill
Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran
His teacher, and did teach with native skill

To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams,
The fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary grove

'T was at this season that Prince Athanase Past the white Alps-those eagle-bafiling mountains Slept in their shrouds of snow;-beside the ways

The waterfalls were voiceless-for their fountains
Were changed to mines of sunless crystal now,
Or by the curdling winds-like brazen wings

Which clang'd alone the mountain's marble brow,
Warp'd into adamantine fretwork, hung
And fill'd with frozen light the chasm below.

FRAGMENT IV.

Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all We can desire, O Love! and happy souls, Ere from thy vine the leaves of autumn fall,

Catch thee, and feed from their o'erflowing bowls Thousands who thirst for thy ambrosial dew;— Thou art the radiance which where ocean rolls

Invests it; and when heavens are blue
Thou fillest them; and when the earth is fair,
The shadow of thy moving wings imbue

Its deserts and its mountains, till they wear
Beauty like some bright robe;-thou ever soarest
Among the towers of men, and as soft air

In spring, which moves the unawaken'd forest, Clothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak, Thou floatest among men ; and aye implorest

That which from thee they should implore: - the weak Alone kneel to thee, offering up the hearts

The strong have broken-yet where shall any seek

A garment whom thou clothest not?
Marlow, 1817.

MAZENGHI.*

OH! foster-nurse of man's abandon'd glory,
Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour;
Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,
As ocean its wreck'd fanes, severe yet tender :
The light-invested angel Poesy

Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee.

The grass in the warm sun did start and move, And sea-buds burst under the waves serene :How many a one, though none be near to love,

Loves then the shade of his own soul, half seen In any mirror-or the spring's young minions, The winged leaves amid the copses green;

How many a spirit then puts on the pinions
Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,
And his own steps-and over wide dominions

Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast,
More fleet than storms-the wide world shrinks below
When winter and despondency are past.

By loftiest meditations; marble knew
The sculptor's fearless soul—and as he wrought,
The grace of his own power and freedom grew.
And more than all, heroic, just, sublime
Thou wert among the false-was this thy crime?

Yes; and on Pisa's marble walls the twine
Of direst weeds hangs garlanded-the snake
Inhabits its wreck'd palaces;-in thine
A beast of subtler venom now doth make
Its lair, and sits amid their glories overthrown,
And thus thy victim's fate is as thine own.

This fragment refers to an event, told in Sismondi's Histoire des Républiques Italiennes, which occurred during the war when Florence finally subdued Pisa, and reduced it to a province. The opening stanzas are addressed to the conquering city.