And look like heralds of eternity:

III.
They pass like spirits of the past,-they speak A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
Like sibyls of the future; they have power-

There was an ancient mansion, and before
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain ;

Its walls there was a steed caparison'd:
They make us what we were not—what they will, Within an antique oratory stood
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,

The boy of whom I spake;-he was alone,
The dread of vanish'd shadows-Are they so? And pale, and pacing to and fro; anon
Is not the past all shadow? What are they?

He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced Creations of the mind ?- The mind can make Words which I could not guess of: then he lean'd Substance, and people planets of its own

His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as 't were With beings brighter than have been, and give

With a convulsion—then arose again, A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear I would recall a vision which I dream'd

What he had written, but he shed no tears. Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought,

And he did calm himself, and fix his brow A slumbering thought, is capable of years,

Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

The lady of his love re-enter'd there;
II.

She was serene and smiling then, and yet

She knew she was by him beloved,-she knew, I saw two beings in the hues of youth

For quickly comes such knowledge, that his heart Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,

Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw Green and of mild declivity, the last

That he was wretched, but she saw not all. As 't were the cape of a long ridge of such,

He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp Save that there was no sea to lave its base,

He took her hand; a moment o'er his face But a most living landscape, and the wave

A tablet of unutterable thoughts Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men

Was traced, and then it faded as it came; Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke

He dropp'd the hand he held, and with slow steps Arising from such rustic roofs ;-the hill

Retired, but not as bidding her adieu, Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem

For they did part with mutual smiles : he pass'd of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,

From out the massy gate of that old hall,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:

And mounting on his steed he went his way,
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath

And ne'er repass'd that hoary threshold more. Fair as herself—but the boy gazed on her ;

IV. And both were young, and one was beautiful:

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. And both were young, yet not alike in youth.

The boy was sprung to manhood: in the wilds As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,

Of fiery climes he made himself a home, The inaid was on the eve of womanhood;

And his soul drank their sunbeams; he was girt The boy had fewer summers, but his heart

With strange and dusky aspects; he was not Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye

Himself like what he had been; on the sea There was but one beloved face on earth,

And on the shore he was a wanderer. And that was shining on him; he had look'd There was a mass of many images Upon it till it could not pass away;

Crowded like waves upon me, but he was He had no breath, no being, but in her's;

A part of all; and in the last he lay
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,

Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight, Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade
For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers, of ruin'd walls that had survived the names
Which colour'd all his objects;-he had ceased

of those who reard them; by his sleeping side To live within himself; she was his life,

Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds The ocean to the river of his thoughts,

Were fastcn'd near a fountain ; and a man Which terminated all: upon a tone,

Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while, A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,

While many of his tribe slumber'd around: And his cheek change tempestuously—his heart

And they were canopied by the blue sky, Unknowing of its cause of agony.

So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
But she in these fond feelings had no share :

That God alone was to be seen in heaven.
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother-but no more; 't was much,

V.
For brotherless she was, save in the name

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him;

The lady of his love was wed with one Herself the solitary scion left

Who did not love her better: in her home, Of a time-honour'd race.--It was a name

A thousand leagues from his,-her native home, Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not—and why? She dwelt, begirt with growing infancy, Time taught hin a deep answer—when she loved Daughters and sons of beauty,—but behold! Another; even now she loved another,

Upon her face there was the tint of grief, And on the summit of that hill she stood

The settled shadow of an inward strise, Looking afar if yet her lover's steed

And an unquiet drooping of the eye, Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew,

As if its lid were charged with unshed tears

a

a

What could her grief be ?-she had all she loved, And the quick spirit of the universe
And he who had so loved her was not there

He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,

To him the magic of their mysteries;
Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts. To him the book of night was open'd wide,
What could her grief be?—she had loved him not, And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd
Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved, A marvel and a secret-Be it so.
Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd

IX.
Upon her mind-a spectre of the past.

My dream was past; it had no further change.
VI.

It was of a strange order, that the doom
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
The wanderer was return'd.--I saw him stand Almost like a reality-the one
Before an altar-with a gentle bride;

To end in madness—both in misery.
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The star-light of his boyhood ;-

;-as he stood Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came

ODE. The self-sarne aspect, and the quivering shock

1. That in the antique oratory shook

Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls His bosom in its solitude; and then

Are level with the waters, there shall be As in that hour-a moment o'er his face

A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, The tablet of unutterable thoughts

A loud lament along the sweeping sea! Was traced,--and then it faded as it came,

If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke

What should thy sons do?-any thing but weep:
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words, And yet they only murmur in their sleep.
And all things reel'd around him; he could see In contrast with their fathers--as the slime,
Not that which was, nor that which should have been- The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall, Is with the dashing of the spring-lide foam,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place, That drives the sailor shipless to his home,
The day, the hour, the sunshine and the shade, Are they to those that were; and thus they creep-
All things pertaining to that place and hour, Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping street
And her who was his destiny came back,

Oh! agony—that centuries should reap
And thrust themselves between him and the light : No mellower harvest ! Thirteen hundred years
What business had they there at such a time? Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears ;
VII.

And every monument the stranger meets,
A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets;
The lady of his love ;-oh! she was changed

And even the Lion all subdued

appears, As by the sickness of the soul; her mind

And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes,

With dull and daily dissonance, repeats They had not their own lustre, but the look

The echo of thy tyrant's voice along Which is not of the earth; she was become

The soft waves, once all musical lo song, The queen of a fantastic realm ; her thoughts

That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Were combinations of disjointed things;

Of gondolas—and to the busy hum And forms, impalpable and unperceived

Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Of others' sight, familiar were to hers.

Were but the overbeating of the hear!, And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise

And flow of too much happiness, which needs Have a far deeper madness, and the glance

The aid of age to turn its course apart Of melancholy is a fearful gift;

From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood What is it but the telescope of truth?

or sweet sensations battling with the blood. Which strips the distance of its phantasies,

But these are better than the gloomy errors, And brings life near in utter nakedness,

The weeds of nations in their last decay, Making the cold reality too real!

When vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors, VIII.

And mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay;

And hope is nothing but a false delay, A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.

The sick man's lightning half an hour cre death, The wanderer was alone as heretofore,

When faintness, the last mortal birth of pain, The beings which surrounded him were gone,

And apathy of limb, the duli beginning Or were at war with him; he was a mark

Of the cold staggering race which death is wigning, For blight and desolation, compass'd round

Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away;
With hatred and contention; pain was mix'd
In all which was served up to him, until,

Yet so relieving the o'ertortured clay,

To him appears renewal of his breath, Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,'

And freedom the mere numbness of his chain ;He ted on poisons, and they had no power,

And then he talks of life, and how again
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many men,

He feels his spirit soaring--albeit weak,

And of the fresher air, which he would seek; And made him friends of mountains : with the stars

And as he whispers knows not that he gasps, 1 Mitondates of Pontus.

That his thin finger feels not what it clasps.

men,

And so the film comes o'er him-and the dizzy Were of the softer order-born of love,
Chamber swims round and round-and shadows busy, She drank no blood, nor fattend on the deau,
At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam,

But gladden'd where her harmless conquesis spread;
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream, For these restored the cross, ihat from above
And all is ice and blackness,--and the carth Hallow'd her sheltering banners, which incessant
That which it was the moment ere our birth. Flew between earth and the unboly crescent,

Which, if it waned and dwindled, carth may thank II.

The city it has clothed in chains, whicn clank
There is no hope for nations ! Search the page Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe

Of many thousand years—the daily scene, The name of freedom to her glorious struggles ;
The flow and ebb of each recurring age,

Yet she but shares with them a common woe,
The everlasting to be which hath been,

And call'd the “ kingdom" of a conquering foe,-
Hath taught us nought or little: still wc lean But knows what all--and, most of all, we know-
On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles !
Our strength away in wrestling with the air ;

IV.
For 't is our nature strikes us down: the beasts
Slaughter'd in hourly hecatombs for feasts

The name of commonwealth is past and gone
Are of as high an order—they must go

O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe ; Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter. Venice is crush'd, and Holland deigns to own Ye who pour your blood for kings as water, A sceptre, and endures the purple robe; What have they given your children in return ?

If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone A heritage of servitude and woes,

His chainless mountains, 't is but for a time, A blindfold bondage where your hire is blows.

For tyranny of late is cunning grown, What? do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn,

And in its own good season tramples down O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal,

The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime, And deem this proof of loyalty the real ;

Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars,

Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion And glorying as you tread the glowing bars ?

of freedom, which their fathers fought for, and All that your sires have left you, all that time

Bequeath'd-a heritage of heart and hand, Bequeaths of free, and history of sublime,

And proud distinction from each other land, Spring from a different theme!-Ye see and read,

Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion, Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed!

As if his senseless sceptre were a wand Save the few spirits, who, despite of all,

Full of the magic of exploded scienceAnd worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd

Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, By the down-thundering of the prison-wall,

Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd,

Above the far Atlantic!-Shc has tanght Gushing from freedom's fountains—when the crowd, Her Esau brethren that the haughty flag, Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud,

The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag, And trample on each other to obtain

May strike to those whose red right hands have bought The cup which brings oblivion of a chain

Rignts cheaply earn’d with blood. Still, still, for ever Heavy and sore,—in which long yoked they plough'd Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, The sand,--or if there sprung the yellow grain

That it should flow, and overflow, than creep 'T was not for them, their necks were too much bow'd, Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain :

Damm'd like the dull canal with locks and chains, Yes! the few spirits-who, despite of deeds

And moving, as a sick man in his sleep, Which they abhor, confound not with the cause

Three paces, and then faltering:- better be Those momentary starts from Nature's laws,

Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are frec, Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite

In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ, But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth

Than stagnate in our marsh,-or o'er the deep With all her seasons to repair the blight

Fly, and one current to the ocean add, With a few summers, and again put forth

One spirit to the souls our fathers had, Cities and generations-fair, when free

One freeman more, America, lo thee! For, tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee!

III.
Glory and empire! once upon these towers

With freedom-godlike triad! how ye sate!
The league of mightiest nations, in those hours
When Venice was an envy, might abate,

But did not quench, her spirit-in her fate
All were enwrapp'd: the feasted monarchs knew

And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate,
Although they hunbled—with the kingly few
The many felt, for from all days and climes
She was the voyager's worship ;--even her crimes

WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM.
As o'er the cold sepulchral stone

Some name arrests the passer-by;
Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,

May mine attract thy pensive eye!
And wnen by thee that name 13 read,

Perchance in some succeeding year,
Reflect on me as on the dead,

And think my heart is buried nere
September 14th, 1809.