3. Or seek some slave of power and gold
To be thy dear heart's mate;
Thy love will move that bigot cold
Sooner than me thy hate.

4. A passion like the one I prove
Cannot divided be;

I hate thy want of truth and love-
How should I then hate thee?

December 1817.

449

LISTEN, listen, Mary mine,

To the whisper of the Apennine.

It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar;
Or like the sea on a northern shore,

Heard in its raging ebb and flow

By the captives pent in the cave below.
The Apennine in the light of day

Is a mighty mountain dim and grey

Which between the earth and sky doth lay;

But, when night comes, a chaos dread

On the dim starlight then is spread,

And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm.

4 May 1818.

ON A DEAD VIOLET.

To MISS

The odour from the flower is gone

Which like thy kisses breathed on me;

The colour from the flower is flown
Which glowed of thee and only thee!

A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,
It lies on my abandoned breast;

And mocks the heart, which yet is warm
With cold and silent rest.

I weep my tears revive it not;
I sigh-it breathes no more on me:
Its mute and uncomplaining lot

Is such as mine should be.

THE PAST.

WILT thou forget the happy hours
Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers,
Heaping over their corpses cold

Blossoms and leaves instead of mould?
Blossoms which were the joys that fell,

And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.

Forget the dead, the past? Oh yet

There are ghosts that may take revenge for it!
Memories that make the heart a tomb,

Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom,
And with ghastly whispers tell

That joy, once lost, is pain.

SONNET.

LIFT not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life; though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe

With colours idly spread. Behind, lurk Fear

And Hope, twin Destinies, who ever weave

Their shadows o'er the chasm sightless and drear.

I knew one who had lifted it :-he sought,

For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,

A splendour among shadows, a bright blot

Upon this gloomy scene, a spirit that strove
For truth, and, like the Preacher, found it not.

LINES WRITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN HILLS.

MANY a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of Misery;
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on-
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track;

Whilst, above, the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,-
And, behind, the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail and cord and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o'er-brimming deep,
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity,
And the dim low line before
Of a dark and distant shore
Still recedes, as--ever still
Longing with divided will,
But no power to seek or shun—
He is ever drifted on

O'er the unreposing wave
To the haven of the grave.

What if there no friends will greet?
What if there no heart will meet
His with love's impatient beat?
Wander wheresoe'er he may,
Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress

In friendship's smile, in love's caress?
Then 'twill wreak him little woe
Whether such there be or no.
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins, and chill,
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
Every little living nerve

That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow
Is like a sapless leaflet now
Frozen upon December's bough.

On the beach of a northern sea
Which tempests shake eternally
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,

One white skull and seven dry bones,
On the margin of the stones,
Where a few grey rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land.
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews' as they sail
O'er the billows of the gale,
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a king in glory rides

Through the pomp of fratricides.
Those unburied bones around

There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,

Like a sunless vapour, dim,

Who once clothed with life and thought
What now moves nor murmurs not.

Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony :-
To such a one this morn was led
My bark, by soft winds piloted.
'Mid the mountains Euganean,
I stood listening to the pean
With which the legioned rooks did hail
The sun's uprise majestical.

Gathering round with wings all hoar,
Through the dewy mist they soar

Like grey shades, till the eastern heaven
Bursts; and then, as clouds of even
Flecked with fire and azure lie
In the unfathomable sky,

So their plumes of purple grain,
Starred with drops of golden rain,
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes

On the morning's fitful gale

Through the broken mist they sail,
And the vapours cloven and gleaming

Follow, down the dark steep streaming,

Till all is bright and clear and still
Round the solitary hill.

Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair.

Underneath Day's azure eyes,
Ocean's nursling, Venice lies,-
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite's destined halls,
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
Lo! the sun upsprings behind,
. Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters crystalline;

And before that chasm of light,
As within a furnace bright,

Column, tower, and dome, and spire,

Shine like obelisks of fire,

Pointing with inconstant motion