CLXV. Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all And spreads the dim and universal pall Through which all things grow phantoms; and the cloud To hover on the verge of darkness; rays CLXVI. And send us prying into the abyss, To gather what we shall be when the frame These fardels of the heart-the heart whose sweat was gore. CLXVII. Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, With some deep and immedicable wound; Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground, She clasps a babe, to whom ber breast yields no relief. CLXVIII. Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, Death hush'd that pang for ever: with thee fled CLXIX. Peasants bring forth in safety.Can it be, Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee, CLXX. Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; Our children should obey her child, and bless'd CLXXI. Woe unto us, not her; for she sleeps well: Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,— : CLXXII. These might have been her destiny; but no, Our hearts deny it and so young, so fair, Good without effort, great without a foe; But now a bride and mother-and now there! How many ties did that stern moment tear! From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast Is linked the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best. CLXXIII. Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills So far, that the uprooting wind which tears And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears CLXXIV. And near Albano's scarce divided waves Shine from a sister valley;-and afar The Tiber winds, and the broad Ocean laves The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war, "Arms and the Man, » whose re-ascending star Rose o'er an empire; but beneath thy right Tully reposed from Rome;-and where yon bar Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight, The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight. CLXXV. But I forget. My Pilgrim's shrine is won, His task and mine alike are nearly done; Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine roll'd CLXXVI. Upon the blue Symplegades: long years Long, though not very many, since have done Their work on both; some suffering and some tears Have left us nearly where we had begun : Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run, We have had our reward-and it is here; That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun, And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. CLXXVII. Oh! that the Desart were my dwelling place, In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. CLXXVIII. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, CLXXIX. 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. |