CLXVI.

And send us prying into the abyss,

To gather what we shall be when the frame Shall be resolv'd 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; Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground,

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.

177

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 we p 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!

M

CLXX.

Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made;
Thy bridals fruit is ashes: in the dust

The fair-hair'd Daughter of the Isles is laid,
The love of millions! How we did entrust
Futurity to her! and thought 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 69 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 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 lov'd thee so that none could love
thee best.

CLXXIII.

70 Lo, Nemi! navell'd in the woody hills
So far, that the uprooting wind which tears
The oak from his foundation, and which spills
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears
Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;
And, calm as cherish'd hate its surface wears

A deep cold settlet aspect nought can shake,
All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

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 repos'd from Rome; -and where yon bar Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight

The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight. 7×

CLXV.

But I forget. My pilgrim's shrine is won,
And he and I must part, so let it be,
His task and mine alike are nearly done;

Yet once more let us look upon the sea;
The midland ocean breaks on him and me,

And from the Alban Mount we now behold

Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold

Those waves, we follow'd on till the dark Euxine

roll'd