And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride,

How bears her breast the torturing hour?

Still clings she to thy side?

Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless Homicide?

If still she loves thee, hoard that gem; 'Tis worth thy vanished diadem!

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile-
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all-idle hand,
In loitering mood upon the sand,
That Earth is now as free,
That Corinth's pedagogue hath now
Transferred his by-word to thy brow.

Thou Timour! in his captive's cage—
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prisoned rage?
But one 'The world was mine!'
Unless, like he of Babylon,

All sense is with thy sceptre gone,

Life will not long confine

That spirit poured so widely forth-
So long obeyed-so little worth!

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Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,

His vulture and his rock! Foredoomed by God-by man accurst,

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And that last act, though not thy worst,

The very Fiend's arch-mock;

He in his fall preserved his pride,

And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!

CCXIV

Lord Byron.

SONG.

FOR THE ANNIVERSARY MEEting of the pITT CLUB OF SCOTLAND, 1814.

O dread was the time, and more dreadful the omen,
When the brave on Marengo lay slaughtered in vain,
And beholding broad Europe bowed down by her foemen,
Pitt closed in his anguish the map of her reign!
Not the fate of broad Europe could bend his brave spirit 5
To take for his country the safety of shame;

O then in her triumph remember his merit,

And hallow the goblet that flows to his name.

Round the husbandman's head, while he traces the furrow,
The mists of the winter may mingle with rain,
He may plough it with labour, and sow it in sorrow,
And sigh while he fears he has sowed it in vain;
He may die ere his children shall reap in their gladness,
But the blithe harvest-home shall remember his claim;
And their jubilee-shout shall be softened with sadness,
While they hallow the goblet that flows to his name.

Though anxious and timeless his life was expended,
In foils for our Country preserved by his care,
Though he died ere one ray o'er the nations ascended,
To light the long darkness of doubt and despair;
The storms he endured in our Britain's December,
The perils his wisdom foresaw and o'ercame,
For her glory's rich harvest shall Britain remember
And hallow the goblet that flows to his name.

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Nor forget this gray head, who, all dark in affliction,
Is deaf to the tale of our victories won,
And to sounds the most dear to paternal affection,
The shout of his people applauding his son;
By his firmness unmoved in success or disaster,

By his long reign of virtue, remember his claim!
With our tribute to Pitt join the praise of his Master,
Though a tear stain the goblet that flows to his name.

Yet again fill the wine-cup, and change the sad measure,
The rites of our grief and our gratitude paid,

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To our Prince, to our Heroes, devote the bright treasure, 35
The wisdom that planned, and the zeal that obeyed!
Fill Wellington's cup till it beam like his glory,

Forget not our own brave Dalhousie and Græme,

A thousand years hence hearts shall bound at their story,
And hallow the goblet that flows to their fame.

CCXV

Sir Walter Scott.

TO THE MEMORY OF PIETRO D'ALESSANDRO,

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SECRETARY TO THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT OF SICILY IN 1848, WHO DIED AN EXILE AT MALTA IN JANUARY 1855

Beside the covered grave

Linger the exiles, though their task is done.

Yes, brethren; from your band one more is gone,
A good man and a brave.

Scanty the rites, and train ;

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How many' of all the storied marbles, set

In all thy churches, City of La Valette,

To love hard truth less than an easy lie,
His country less than gold,-

Then, not the spirit's strife,

Nor sickening pangs at sight of conquering crime,

Nor anxious watching of an evil time,

Had worn his chords of life :

Nor here, nor thus with tears

Untimely shed, but there whence o'er the sea
The great Volcano looks, his rest might be,
The close of prosperous years.

No!

Different hearts are bribed;

And therefore, in his cause's sad eclipse,
Here died he, with 'Palermo' on his lips,
A poor man, and proscribed.

Wrecked all thy hopes, O friend,—

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Hopes for thyself, thine Italy, thine own,

High gifts defeated of their due renown,—
Long toil and this the end!

The end? not ours to scan:

Yet grieve not, children, for your father's worth;
Oh! never wish that in his native earth

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He lay, a baser man.

What to the dead avail

The chance success, the blundering praise of fame?

Oh! rather trust, somewhere the noble aim

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Is crowned, though here it fail.

Kind, generous, true wert thou :

This meed at least to goodness must belong,

That such it was. Farewell; the world's great wrong

Is righted for thee now.

Rest in thy foreign grave,

Sicilian! whom our English hearts have loved,

Italian! such as Dante had approved,—

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An exile-not a slave!

Henry Lushington.

CCXVI

HYMN BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF
CHAMOUNI.

Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star

In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran Blanc!
The Arvé and Arveiron at thy base

Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air, and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!

O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,

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IO

Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer 15 I worshipped the Invisible alone.

Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,

So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,

Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,

Yea, with my life and life's own secret joy,

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Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused,

Into the mighty vision passing-there,

As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!
Awake my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn,
Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the Vale!
Oh, struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,

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