I am not innocent-but are these guiltless?
I perish, but not unavenged; far ages
Float up from the abyss of time to be,
And show these eyes, before they close, the doom
Of this proud city, and I leave my curse
On her and her's for ever:-Yes, the hours
Are silently engendering of the day,
When she who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield
Unto a bastard Attila, without
Shedding so much blood in her last defence
As these old veins, oft drain'd in shielding her,
Shall pour in sacrifice. She shall be bought
And sold, and be an appanage to those
Who shall despise her!-She shall stoop to be
A province for an empire, petty town
In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people!
Then, when the Hebrew's in thy palaces,
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his!
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity:
Then, when the few who still retain a wreck
Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn
Round a barbarian Vice of King's Vice-gerent,
Even in the palace where they sway'd as sovereigns,
Even in the palace where they slew their sovereign,
Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung
From an adultress boastful of her guilt
With some large gondolier or foreign soldier,
Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph
To the third spurious generation;-when
Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
Slaves turn'd o'er to the vanquish'd by the victors,
Despised by cowards for still greater cowardice,
And scorn'd even by the vicious for such vices
As, in the monstrous grasp of their conception,
Defy all codes to image or to name them;
Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom,
All thine inheritance shall be her shame,
Entail'd on thy less virtuous daughters, grown
A wider proverb for worse prostitution;-
When all the ills of conquer'd states shall cling thee,
Vice without splendour, sin without relief
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er,
But in its stead coarse lusts of habitude,
Prurient yet passionless, cold studied lewdness,
Depraving nature's frailty to an art;—
When these and more are heavy on thee, when
Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without pleasure,
Youth without honour, age without respect,
Meanness and weakness, and a sense of woe
'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not
murmur,
Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts; Then, in the last gasp of thine agony,
Amidst thy many murders, think of mine!
Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes!
Gehenna of the waters! thou sea Sodom!
Thus I devote thee to the infernal gods!
Thee and thy serpent seed!
Strike as I struck the foe! strike as I would
Have struck those tyrants!
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel-shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or in a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies: And full-grown lamps loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
-OH! for a Brutus in these later years,
To burst the heavier bond his country wears!
Oh! for a Tully with the silver tongue!
And oh, Venusia! that thy harp were strung
One hour, to tell her sons the spell that lies
In the deep azure of Italian skies!
And where art thou, with all thy songs and smiles,
Thou dream-like city of the hundred isles?
Thy marble columns, and thy princely halls,
Thy merry masques, and moonlight carnivals;
Thy weeping myrtles, and thy orange bowers,
Thy lulling fountains, 'mid ambrosial flowers;
The cloudless beauty of thy deep-blue skies,
Thy star-light serenades to ladies' eyes;
Thy lion, looking o'er the Adrian sea,
Defiance to the world, and power to thee?-
That pageant of the sunny waves is gone,
Her glory lives on memory's page alone;
It flashes still in Shakspeare's living lay,
And Otway's song has snatch'd it from decay;
But ah! her Chian steeds of brass no more
May lord it proudly over sea and shore;
Nor ducal sovereigns launch upon the tide,
To win the Adriatic for their bride;
Hush'd is the music of her gondoliers,
And fled her glory of a thousand years;
And Tasso's spirit round her seems to sigh,
In every Adrian gale that wanders by!
MY SISTER'S GRAVE.
THE noon-day sun is riding high,
Along the calm and cloudless sky;
The mantle of its gorgeous glow
Floats sleepily o'er all below;
And heaven and earth are brightly gay
Beneath the universal ray:-
But not a wandering sunbeam falls
Within these high and hallow'd walls,
Which echo back my lonely tread,
Like solemn answers from the dead;
-The murmurs steal along the nave,
And die above-my sister's grave!
'Tis evening-still I linger here;
Yet sorrow speaks not in a tear!
The silence is so sadly deep,
The place so pure, I dare not weep:
I sit as in a shapeless dream,
Where all is changing, save its theme;
And, if a sigh will sometimes heave
A heart that loves, but may not grieve,
It seems as though the spirits round
Sent back reproachfully the sound;
And then I start-and think I have
A chiding from my sister's grave!
The feeling is a nameless one
With which I sit upon thy stone,
And read the tale I dare not breathe,
Of blighted hope that sleeps beneath.
A simple tablet bears above
Brief record of a father's love,
And hints, in language yet more brief,
The story of a father's grief:
Around, the night-breeze sadly plays
With scutcheons of the elder days;
And faded banners dimly wave
On high-right o'er my sister's grave!
Lost spirit!-thine was not a breast
To struggle vainly after rest;
Thou wert not made to bear the strife,
Nor labour through the storms of life;
Thy heart was in too warm a mould
To mingle with the dull and cold;
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