At length those eyes, which they would fain be weaning

Back to old thoughts, wax'd full of fearful meaning.

And then a slave bethought her of a harp : The harper came and tuned his instrument: At the first notes, irregular and sharp,

On him her flashing eyes a moment bent; Then to the wall she turn'd, as if to warp Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent;

And he began a long low island song
Of ancient days ere tyranny grew strong.

Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall

In time to his old tune; he changed the theme,

And sung of Love; the fierce name struck

through all

Her recollection; on her flash'd the dream Of what she was, and is, if ye could call

To be so being in a gushing stream The tears rush'd forth from her o'erclouded brain,

Like mountain mists at length dissolved in rain.

Short solace, vain relief! thought came too quick,

And whirl'd her brain to madness; she

arose

As one who ne'er had dwelt among the sick, And flew at all she met, as on her foes; But no one ever heard her speak or shriek, Although her paroxysm drew towards its close;

Hers was a frenzy which disdain'd to rave, Even when they smote her, in the hope to save.

Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus; at last,

Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to show

A parting pang, the spirit from her pass'd: And they who watch'd her nearest could not know

The very instant, till the change that cast

Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow, Glazed o'er her eyes-the beautiful, the black

Oh to possess such lustre, and then lack!

She died, but not alone; she held within
A second principle of life, which might
Have dawn'd a fair and sinless child of sin;
But closed its little being without light,
And went down to the grave unborn, wherein
Blossom and bough lie wither'd with one
blight;

In vain the dews of heaven descend above
The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love.

Thus lived-thus died she; never more on her Shall sorrow light or shame. She was not made

Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,

Which colder hearts endure till they are laid

By age in earth: her days and pleasures were

Brief, but delightful-such as had not stay'd Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well By the sea-shore whereon she loved to dwell. That isle is now all desolate and bare,

Its dwellings down, its tenants pass'd away, None but her own and father's grave is there; And nothing outward tells of human clay; Ye could not know where lies a thing so fair; No one is there to show, no tongue to say What was; no dirge except the hollow seas Mourns o'er the beauty of the Cyclades.

Lord Byron.-Born 1788, Died 1824.

1352.-ALL FOR LOVE.

O talk not to me of a name great in story; The days of our youth are the days of our glory;

And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-andtwenty

Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?

'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled :

Then away with all such from the head that is hoary

What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

O Fame-if I e'er took delight in thy praises,

'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,

Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover

She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;

Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;

When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,

I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory. Lord Byron.-Born 1788, Died 1824.

1353. SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY. She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies, And all that's best of dark and bright Meets in her aspect and her eyes, Thus mellow'd to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent,-
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

Lord Byron.-Born 1788, Died 1824.

1354-ELEGY ON THYRZA.
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And forms so soft and charms so rare
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow

So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved and long must love,

Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell 'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last,

As fervently as thou

Who didst not change through all the past
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;

The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lours
Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away.
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last,

Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept if I could weep,

My tears might well be shed
To think I was not near, to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed:
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity

Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.

Lord Byron.-Born 1788, Died 1824.

'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe,

All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

O could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,

Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd scene,

As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,

So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me!

Lord Byron.—Born 1788, Died 1824.

1356.-VISION OF BELSHAZZAR. The King was on his throne,

The Satraps throng'd the hall:
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deem'd divine-
Jehovah's vessels hold

The godless heathen's wine!

In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man ;-
A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look,
And tremulous his voice.
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill; And the unknown letters stood Untold and awful still. And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore; But now they were not sage, They saw-but knew no more.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth, He heard the king's command, He saw that writing's truth; The lamps around were bright, The prophecy in view; He read it on that night,The morrow proved it true. "Belshazzar's grave is made, His kingdom pass'd away,

He, in the balance weigh'd,

Is light and worthless clay; The shroud his robe of state,

His canopy the stone; The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

Lord Byron.-Born 1788, Died 1824.

1357.-TO BELSHAZZAR.
Belshazzar! from the banquet turn,
Nor in thy sensual fulness fall;
Behold! while yet before thee burn
The graven words, the glowing wall,
Many a despot men miscall

Crown'd and anointed from on high;
But thou, the weakest, worst of all-
Is it not written, thou must die?

Go! dash the roses from thy brow

Grey hairs but poorly wreathe with them; Youth's garlands misbecome thee now,

More than thy very diadem,

Where thou hast tarnish'd every gem :

Then throw the worthless bauble by, Which, worn by thee, even slaves contemn; And learn like better men to die!

Oh! early in the balance weigh'd,
And ever light of word and worth,
Whose soul expired ere youth decay'd,
And left thee but a mass of earth.
To see thee moves the scorner's mirth:
But tears in Hope's averted eye
Lament that even thou hadst birth-
Unfit to govern, live, or die.

Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,

And swiftly forming in the ranks of war; And the deep thunder peal on peal afar; And near, the beat of the alarming drum Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;

While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb,

Or whispering, with white lips-"The foe! They come! they come!"

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose!

The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills

Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon

foes:

Spare nothing but a gloomy theme On which the lightest heart might moralize ? Or is it only a sweet slumber

Stealing o'er sensation,

Which the breath of roseate morning
Chaseth into darkness ?

Will Ianthe wake again,
And give that faithful bosom joy
Whose sleepless spirit waits to catch
Light, life, and rapture from her smile.

Her dewy eyes are closed,
And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark blue orbs beneath,
The baby Sleep is pillow'd:

Her golden tresses shade

The bosom's stainless pride,

Curling like tendrils of the parasite
Around a marble column.

Hark! whence that rushing sound? "Tis like the wondrous strain That round a lonely ruin swells, Which, wandering on the echoing shore, The enthusiast hears at evening: 'Tis softer than the west wind's sigh; 'Tis wilder than the unmeasured notes Of that strange lyre whose strings The genii of the breezes sweep: Those lines of rainbow light

Are like the moonbeams when they fall
Through some cathedral window, but the teints
Are such as may not find
Comparison on earth.

Behold the chariot of the fairy queen!
Celestial coursers paw the unyielding air;
Their filmy pennons at her word they furl,
And stop obedient to the reins of light:

These the queen of spells drew in;
She spread a charm around the spot,
And leaning graceful from the ethereal car,
Long did she gaze, and silently,
Upon the slumbering maid.

Shelley.-Born 1792, Died 1822.

1360.-THE CLOUD.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken

The sweet birds every one,

When rock'd to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;

And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fetter'd the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves, remains;

And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,

Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack
When the morning star shines dead.
As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit, one moment may sit

In the light of its golden wings; And when sunset may breathe from the lit sea beneath,

Its ardours of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,
With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,

The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm river, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on
high,

Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and
swim,

When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chain'd to my chair,

Is the million-colour'd bow;

The sphere-fire above, its soft colours wove, While the moist earth was laughing below.

Her M