Which seen from far Colonna's height,

Make glad the heart that hails the sight, 10

And lend to loneliness delight.

There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek

Reflects the tints of many a peak

Caught by the laughing tides that lave

These Edens of the eastern wave;

And if at times a transient breeze

Break the blue crystal of the seas,

Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air

That wakes and wafts the odours there!

For there-the Rose o'er crag or vale,

Sultana of the Nightingale,

The maid for whom his melody,

His thousand songs are heard on high,

Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:

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20

25

His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from the winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by nature given
In softest incense back to heaven;

And grateful yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.

And many a summer flower is there,

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And many a shade that love might share, 35

And many a grotto, meant for rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;

Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar3

Is heard, and seen the evening star;

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Then stealing with the muffled oar,

Far shaded by the rocky shore,

Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,

And turn to groans his roundelay.

Strange-that where Nature loved to trace,

As if for Gods, a dwelling-place,

And every charm and grace hath mixed

Within the paradise she fixed,

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There man, enamoured of distress,

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Should mar it into wilderness,

And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower

That tasks not one laborious hour;

Nor claims the culture of his hand

To bloom along the fairy land,

But springs as to preclude his care,

And sweetly woos him-but to spare!

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Strange-that where all is peace beside

There passion riots in her pride,

And lust and rapine wildly reign

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To darken o'er the fair domain.

It is as though the fiends prevailed

Against the seraphs they assailed,

And, fixed on heavenly thrones, should dwell The freed inheritors of hell;

So soft the scene, so formed for joy,

So curst the tyrants that destroy!

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He who hath bent him o'er the dead

Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress,

(Before Decay's effacing fingers

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Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)

And marked the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose that's there,

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The fixed yet tender traits that streak

The languor of the placid cheek,

And-but for that sad shrouded eye,

That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now, And but for that chill changeless brow, 80 Where cold Obstruction's apathy *

4

Appals the gazing mourner's heart,

As if to him it could impart

The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;

Yes, but for these and these alone,

Some moments, ay, one treacherous hour,

He still might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,

The first, last look by death revealed!

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