As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
What she had made the pupil of her art,
None know-but that high Soul secured the
heart,

And panted for the truth it could not hear,
With longing breast and undeluded ear.
Foil'd was perversion by that youthful mind,
Which Flattery fool'd not, Baseness could not
blind,

Deceit infect not, near Contagion soil,
Indulgence weaken, nor Example spoil,
Nor master'd Science tempt her to look down
On humbler talents with a pitying frown,
Nor Genius swell, nor Beauty render vain,
Nor Envy ruffle to retaliate pain,

Nor Fortune change, Pride raise, nor Passion bow,

Nor Virtue teach austerity-till now.
Serenely purest of her sex that live,

But wanting one sweet weakness-to forgive;
Too shock'd at faults her soul can never know,
She deems that all could be like her below;
Foe to all Vice, yet hardly Virtue's friend,
For Virtue pardons those she would amend.

But to the theme, now laid aside too long,
The baleful Burthen of this honest song:
Though all her former functions are no more,
She rules the circle which she served before.

If mothers-none know why-before her quake;
If daughters dread her for the mother's sake;
If early habits-those false links, which bind
At times the loftiest to the meanest mind-
Have given her power too deeply to instil
The angry essence of her deadly will;
If like a snake she steal within your walls,
Till the black slime betray her as she crawls;
If like a viper to the heart she wind,

And leave the venom there she did not find;
What marvel that this hag of hatred works
Eternal evil latent as she lurks,

To make a Pandemonium where she dwells,
And reign the Hecate of domestic hells?
Skill'd by a touch to deepen scandal's tints
With all the kind mendacity of hints,
While mingling truth with falsehood-sneers
with smiles-

A thread of candour with a web of wiles:
A plain but blunt show of briefly-spoken seeming,
To hide her bloodless heart's soul-harden'd

scheming ;

A lip of lies-a face form'd to conceal;
And, without feeling, mock at all who feel:
With a vile mask the Gorgon would disown;
A cheek of parchment, and an eye of stone.
Mark, how the channels of her yellow blood
Ooze to her skin, and stagnate there to mud,
Cased like the centipede in saffron mail,
Or darker greenness of the scorpion's scale-
(For drawn from reptiles only may we trace
Congenial colours in that soul or face)-
Look on her features! and behold her mind
As in a mirror of itself defined:

Look on the picture! deem it not o'ercharged-
There is no trait which might not be enlarged:
Yet true to "Nature's journeymen," who made
This monster when their mistress left off trade-
This female dog-star of her little sky,
Where all beneath her influence droop or die.
Oh! wretch without a tear-without a
thought,

clay.

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA. WHEN all around grew drear and dark, And reason half withheld her ray, And hope but shed a dying spark

Which more misled my lonely way; In that deep midnight of the mind,

And that internal strife of heart, When dreading to be deem'd too kind,

The weak despair-the cold depart;
When fortune changed, and love fled far,
And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star

Which rose and set not to the last.
Oh! blest be thine unbroken light,
That watch'd me as a seraph's eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.
And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray-
Then purer spread its gentle flame,

And dash'd the darkness all away.
Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,

And teach it what to brave or brookThere's more in one soft word of thine Than in the world's defied rebuke. Thou stood'st, as stands a lovely tree, That still unbroke, though gently bent, Still waves with fond fidelity

Its boughs above a monument.
The winds might rend, the skies might pour,
But there thou wert-and still woudst be
Devoted in the stormiest hour

To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.
But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For Heaven in sunshine will requite

The kind-and thee the most of all.

Then let the ties of baffled love

Be broken-thine will never break ; Thy heart can feel, but will not move; Thy soul, though soft, will never shake. And these, when all was lost beside, Were found and still are fix'd in thee;And bearing still a breast so tried, Earth is no desert-ev'n to me.

STANZAS TO AUGUSTA. THOUGH the day of my destiny's over, And the star of my fate hath declined, Thy soft heart refused to discover

The faults which so many could find; Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, It shrunk not to share it with me, And the love which my spirit hath painted It never hath found but in thee. Then when nature around me is smiling, The last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling,

Because it reminds me of thine;

And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,

It is that they bear me from thee.
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn;
They may torture, but shall not subdue me;
'Tis of thee that I think-not of them.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake;
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me;
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one:
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'Twas folly not sooner to shun:
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.

From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd, Thus much I at least may recall,

It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd, Deserved to be dearest of all:

In the desert a fountain is springing,

In the wide waste there still is a tree, And a bird in the solitude singing, Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA. My sister! my sweet sister! if a name Dearer and purer were, it should be thine: Mountains and seas divide us, but I claim

No tears, but tenderness to answer mine: Go where I will, to me thou art the sameA loved regret which I would not resign. There yet are two things in my destiny-. A world to roam through, and a home with thee.

The first were nothing-had I still the last,
It were the haven of my happiness:
But other claims and other ties thou hast,

And mine is not the wish to make them less.
A strange doom is thy father's son's, and past
Recalling, as it lies beyond redress:
Reversed for him our grandsire's fate of yore,-
He had no rest at sea, nor I on shore.
If my inheritance of storms hath been
In other elements, and on the rocks
Of perils, overlook'd or unforeseen,

I have sustain'd my share of worldly shocks,
The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen
My errors with defensive paradox;
I have been cunning in mine overthrow,
The careful pilot of my proper woe.

Mine were my faults, and mine be their reward:
My whole life was a contest, since the day
That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd
The gift-a fate, or will, that walk'd astray;
And I at times have found the struggle hard,
And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:
But now I fain would for a time survive,
If but to see what next can well arrive.
Kingdoms and empires in my little day

I have outlived, and yet I am not old;
And when I look on this, the petty spray

Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'ḍ Like a wild bay of breakers, melts away:

Something I know not what-does still uphold

A spirit of slight patience;-not in vain,
Even for its own sake, do we purchase pain.
Perhaps the workings of defiance stir

Within me or perhaps a cold despair,
Brought on when ills habitually recur,-
(For even to this may change of soul refer,
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,

And with light armour we may learn to bear), Have taught me a strange quiet, which was not The chief companion of a calmer lot.

I feel almost at times as I have felt

In happy childhood, trees, and flowers, and brooks,

Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt

My heart with recognition of their looks;
And even at moments I could think I see

Some living thing to love--but none like thee.
Here are the Alpine landscapes which create
A fund for contemplation;-to admire
Is a brief feeling of a trivial date;

But something worthier do such scenes in

spire.

Here to be lonely is not desolate,

For much I view which I could most desire, And, above all, a lake I can behold Lovelier, not dearer, than our own of old. Oh that thou wert but with me!--but I grow The fool of my own wishes, and forget The solitude which I have vaunted so

Has lost its praise in this but one regret; There may be others which I less may show.I am not of the plaintive mood, and yet

I feel an ebb in my philosophy,
And the tide rising in my alter'd eye.

I did remind thee of our own dear Lake,
By the old Hall which may be mine no more,
Leman's is fair; but think not I forsake

The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore: Sad havoc Time must with my memory make, Ere that or thou can fade these eyes before; Though, like all things which I have loved, they

are

Resign'd for ever, or divided far.

The world is all before me; I but ask

Of Nature that with which she will complyIt is but in her summer's sun to bask,

To mingle with the quiet of her sky,
To see her gentle face without a mask,
And never gaze on it with apathy.
She was my early friend, and now shall be
My sister-till I look again on thee.
I can reduce all feelings but this one;

And that I would not ;--for at length I see
Such scenes as those wherein my life begun.
The earliest-even the only paths for me-
Had I but sooner learnt the crowd to shun,
I had been better than I now can be ;

The passions which have torn me would have slept;

I had not suffer'd, and thou hadst not wept.
With false Ambition what had I to do?

Little with Love, and least of all with Fame; And yet they came unsought, and with me grew, And made me all which they can make-a

name.

Yet this was not the end I did pursue;
Surely I once beheld a nobler aim.
But all is over-I am one the more
To baffled millions which have gone before.
And for the future, this world's future may
From me demand but little of my care;
I have outlived myself by many a day,

Having survived so many things that were;
My years have been no slumber, but the prey
Of ceaseless vigils; for I had the share
Of life which might have fill'd a century,
Before its fourth in time had pass'd me by.
And for the remnant which may be to come
I am content; and for the past I feel
Not thankless,-for within the crowded sum
Of struggles, happiness at times would steal
And for the present, I would not benumb

My feelings further.-Nor shall I conceal That with all this I still can look around, And worship Nature with a thought profound. For thee, my own sweet sister, in thy heart I know myself secure, as thou in mine; We were and are-I am, even as thou artBeings who ne'er each other can resign; it is the same, together or apart,

:

From life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined: let death come slow or fast, The tie which bound the first endures the last!

They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past,-they speak
Like sibyls of the future; they have power-
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain:
They make us what we were not-what they
will,

And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows-are they so?
Is not the past all shadow?-What are they?
Creations of the mind?-The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchance in sleep; for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

II.

Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill,
I saw two beings in the hues of youth
Green, and of mild declivity, the last
As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such,
Save that there was no sea to lave its base,
But a most living landscape, and the wave
Of woods and cornfields, and the abodes of men
Scatter'd at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs:- the hill
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing the one on all that was beneath,
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both mere young-yet not alike in youth.
As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge,
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him; he had look'd
Upon it till it could not pass away;

He had no breath, no being, but in hers;
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his sight,
For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers,
Which colour'd all his objects:-he had ceased
To live within himself; she was his life,
The ocean to the river of his thoughts,
Which terminated all: upon a tone,

A touch of hers, his blood would ebb and flow,
And his cheek change tempestuously-his heart
Unknowing of its cause of agony.

But she in these fond feelings had no share:
Her sighs were not for him; to her he was
Even as a brother-but no more; 'twas much,
For brotherless she was, save in the name
Her infant friendship had bestow'd on him;
Herself the solitary scion left

Of a time-honour'd race.-It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him notand why?

Time taught him a deep answer-when she loved

Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood

Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

III.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparison'd;
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake ;-he was alone,
And pale, and pacing to and fro: ancn
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced
Words which I could not guess of; then he
lean'd

His bow'd head] on his hands, and shook as 'twere

With a convulsion-then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears,
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet: as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-enter'd there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved, she knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge, that his
heart

Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts

Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropp'd the hand he held, and with slow

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Boy was sprung to manhood; in the wilds
Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his soul drank their sunbeams: he was girt
With strange and dusky aspect; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay
Reposing from the noontide sultriness,
Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade
Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names
Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping side
Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds
Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man,
Clad in a flowing garb, did watch the while,
While many of his tribe slumber'd around:
And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in heaven.

What could her grief be?-she had all she loved;
And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repress'd affliction, her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be?-she had loved him

not,

Nor given him cause to deem himself beloved; Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd Upon her mind-a spectre of the past.

VI.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was return'd.-I saw him stand
Before an altar-with a gentle bride;
Her face was fair, but was not that which made
The starlight of his Boyhood. As he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The self-same aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook

His bosom in its solitude; and then-
As in that hour-a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced,-and then it faded as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own words,
And all things reel'd around him; he could see
Not that which was, nor that which should

have been

But the old mansion, and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour,
And her who was his destiny,-came back
And thrust themselves between him and the
light:

What business had they there at such a time?

VII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;-oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes,
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls frenzy: but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its fantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

VIII.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,
The beings which surrounded him were gone,
Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass'd round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix'd
In all which was served up to him, until,
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,
But were a kind of nutriment; he lived
Through that which had been death to many

men,

And made him friends of mountains: with the

stars

And the quick Spirit of the Universe
He held his dialogues; and they did teach

To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was open'd wide,
And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd
A marvel and a secret.-Be it so.

IX.

My dream is past; it had no further change.
It was of a strange order, that the doom

Of these two creatures should be thus traced out
Almost like a reality-the one
To end in madness-both in misery.

LINES

ON HEARING THAT LADY BYRON WAS ILL.

AND thou wert sad-yet I was not with thee! And thou wert sick, and yet I was not near; Methought that joy and health alone could be Where I was not-and pain and sorrow here! And is it thus?-it is as I foretold,

And shall be more so; for the mind recoils Upon itself, and the wreck'd heart lies cold, While heaviness collects the shatter'd spoils. It is not in the storm nor in the strife,

We feel benumb'd, and wish to be no more, But in the after-silence on the shore, When all is lost, except a little life. I am too well avenged!-but 'twas my right! Whate'er my sins might be, thou wert not sent To be the Nemesis who should requite

Nor did Heaven choose so near an instrument. Mercy is for the merciful!-if thou

Hast been of such, 'twill be accorded now. Thy nights are banish'd from the realms of sleep!

Yes! they may flatter thee, but thou shalt feel A hollow agony which will not heal, For thou art pillow'd on a curse too deep; Thou hast sown in my sorrow, and must reap The bitter harvest in a woe as real! I have had many foes, but none like thee;

For 'gainst the rest myself I could defend, And be avenged, or turn them into friend; But thou in safe implacability,

Hadst nought to dread-in thy own weakness shielded,

And in my love, which hath but too much yielded,

And spared, for thy sake, some I should not

spare;

And thus upon the world-trust in thy truth, And the wild fame of my ungovern'd youth

On things that were not, and on things that

are

Even upon such a basis hast thou built
A monument, whose cement hath been guilt!
The moral Clytemnestra of thy lord,
And hew'd down with an unsuspected sword,
Fame, peace, and hope--and all the better life

Which, but for this cold treason of thy heart, Might still have risen from out the grave of strife,

And found a nobler duty than to part.
But of thy virtues didst thou make a vice,

Trafficking with them in a purpose cold,
For present anger, and for future gold-
And buying other's grief at any price.
And thus once enter'd into crooked ways,
The early truth, which was thy proper praise,
Did not still walk beside thee-but at times,
And with a breast unknowing its own crimes,
Deceit, averments incompatible,

Equivocations, and the thoughts which dwell
În Janus-spirits-the significant eye
Which learns to lie with silence-the pretext
Of prudence, with advantages annex'd-
The acquiescence in all things which tend,
No matter how, to the desired end-

All found a place in thy philosophy.
The means were worthy, and the end is won-
I would not do by thee as thou hast done!

LONG years! It tries the thrilling frame to bear,
And eagle-spirit of a child of Song-
Long years of outrage, calumny, and wrong;
Imputed madness, prison'd solitude,
And the mind's canker in its savage mood,
When the impatient thirst of light and air
Parches the heart; and the abhorred grate,
Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade,
Works through the throbbing eyeball to the
brain,

With a hot sense of heaviness and pain;
And bare, at once, Captivity display'd
Stands scoffing through the never-open'd gate,
Which nothing through its bars admits, save day,

And tasteless food, which I have eat alone
Till its unsocial bitter is gone;
And I can banquet like a beast of prey,
Sullen and lonely, c ng in the cave
Which is my lair, and it may be-my grave.
All this hath somewt worn me, and may wear,
But must be borne. I stoop not to despair;
For I have battled with mine agony,
And made me wings wherewith to overfly
The narrow circus of my dungeon wall,
And freed the Holy S ulchre from thrall;
And revell'd among men and things divine,
And pour'd my spirit over Palestine
In honour of the sa war for Him,
The God who was een and is in heaven,