CLIX.

Then pause, and be enlighten'd; there is more In such a survey than the sating gaze

Of wonder pleased, or awe which would adore The worship of the place, or the mere praise Of art and its great masters, who could raise What former time, nor skill, nor thought could The fountain of sublimity displays [plan; Its depth, and thence may draw the mind of man Its golden sands, and learn what great conceptions

can.

CLX.

Or, turning to the Vatican, go see
Laocoon's torture dignifying pain—
A father's love and mortal's agony

With an immortal's patience blending :- Vain The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench; the long envenom'd chain Rivets the living links, the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.

CLXI.

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, The God of life, and poesy, and lightThe Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight; The shaft hath just been shot-the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his ey And nostril beautiful disdain, and might And majesty, flash their full lightnings by Developing in that one glance the Deity.

CLXII.

But in his delicate form—a dream of Love,
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
Long'd for a deathless lover from above,
And madden'd in that vision—are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd

The mind with in its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly guest-
A ray of immortality-and stood,

Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god!

CLXIII.

And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven
The fire which we endure, it was repaid
By him to whom the energy was given
Which this poetic marble hath array'd
With an eternal glory—which, if made
By human hands, is not of human thought;
And Time himself hath hallow'd it, nor laid
One ringlet in the dust—nor hath it caught
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which
'twas wrought.

CLXIV.

But where is he, the Pilgrim of my song,
The being who upheld it through the past?
Methinks he cometh late and tarries long.
He is no more-these breathings are his last;
His wanderings done, his visions ebbing fast,
And he himself as nothing:-if he was
Aught but a phantasy, and could be class'd

With forms which live and suffer--let that pass—

His shadow fades away into Destruction's mass,

CLXV.

Which gathers shadow, substance, life, and all
That we inherit in its mortal shroud,

And spreads the dim and universal pall

[cloud

Through which all things grow phantoms; and the
Between us sinks and all which ever glow'd,

Till Glory's self is twilight, and displays
A melancholy halo scarce allow'd

To hover on the verge of darkness; rays
Sadder than saddest night, for they distract the gaze,

CLXVI.

And send us prying into the abyss,

To gather what we shall be when the frame
Shall be resolved to something less than this
Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame,
And wipe the dust from off the idle name
We never more shall hear,—but never more,
Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same:
It is enough in sooth that once we bore

These fardels of the heart-the heart whose sweat

was gore.

CLXVII.

Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,
A long low distant murmur of dread sound,
Such as arises when a nation bleeds

With some deep and immedicable wound; [ground,
Through storm and darkness yawns the rending
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief
Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd,
And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief

She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.

CLXVIII.

Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low Some less majestic, less beloved head?

In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy,

Death hush'd that pang for ever: with thee fled The present happiness and promised joy

Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to

cloy.

CLXIX.

Peasants bring forth in safety.—Can it be,
Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored!
Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee,
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard
Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head
Beheld her Iris.-Thou, too, lonely lord,

And desolate consort-vainly wert thou wed! The husband of a year! the father of the dead!

CLXX.

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made; Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid, The love of millions! How we did intrust Futurity to her! and, though it must Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd Our children should obey her child, and bless'd Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd Like stars to shepherds' eyes :-'twas but a meteor

beam'd.

CLXXI.

Woe unto us, not her ('); for she sleeps well:
The fickle reek of popular breath, the tongue
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle,

Which from the birth of monarchy hath rung
Its knell in princely ears, 'till the o'erstung
Nations have arm'd in madness, the strange fate (2)
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns, and hath flung
Against their blind omnipotence a weight

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 link'd 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.

(1) ["The death of the Princess Charlotte has been a shock even here (Venice), and must have been an earthquake at home. The fate of this poor girl is melancholy in every respect; dying at twenty or so, in childbed - of a boy too, a present princess and future queen, and just as she began to be happy, and to enjoy herself, and the hopes which she inspired. sorry in every respect."- B. Letters.]

I feel

(2) Mary died on the scaffold; Elizabeth of a broken heart; Charles V. a hermit; Louis XIV. a bankrupt in means and glory; Cromwell of anxiety; and, "the greatest is behind," Napoleon lives a prisoner. To these sovereigns a long but superfluous list might be added of names equally illustrious and unhappy.