All things that we love and cherish,

Like ourselves, must fade and perish; Such is our rude mortal lot

Love itself would, did they not.

ΤΟ

WHEN passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!

It were enough to feel, to see
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest-and burn, and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets reappear;
All things revive in field or grove,

And sky and sea, but two, which move,
And for all others, life and love.

PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES.

LISTEN, listen, Mary mine,

To the whisper of the Apennine.

It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar,

Or like the sea on a northern shore,

Heard in its raging ebb and flow

By the captives pent in the cave below.
The Apennine in the light of day
Is a mighty mountain dim and gray,
Which between the earth and sky doth lay;
But when night comes, a chaos dread
On the dim star-light then is spread,
And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm.
May 4th, 1818.

Heaping over their corpses cold Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould? Blossoms which were the joys that fell, And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.

Forget the dead, the past? O yet

There are ghosts that may take revenge for it
Memories that make the heart a tomb,

Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom,
And with ghastly whispers tell
That joy, once lost, is pain.

SONG OF A SPIRIT.

WITHIN the silent centre of the earth
My mansion is; where I lived insphered
From the beginning, and around my sleep
Have woven all the wondrous imagery

Of this dim spot, which mortals call the world;
Infinite depths of unknown elements
Mass'd into one impenetrable mask;
Sheets of immeasurable fire, and veins

Of gold and stone, and adamantine iron.

And as a veil in which I walk through Heaven

I have wrought mountains, seas, and waves, and

clouds,

And lastly light, whose interfusion dawns In the dark space of interstellar air.

LIBERTY.

THE fiery mountains answer each other;
Their thunderings are echoed from zone to zone;
The tempestuous oceans awake one another,
And the ice-rocks are shaken round winter's zone,
When the clarion of the Typhoon is blown

From a single cloud the lightning flashes,
Whilst a thousand isles are illumined around;
Earthquake is trampling one city to ashes,

A hundred are shuddering and tottering; the sound
Is bellowing underground.

But keener thy gaze than the lightning's glare, And swifter thy step than the earthquake's tramp; Thou deafenest the rage of the ocean; thy stare Makes blind the volcanoes; the sun's bright lamp To thine is a fen-fire damp.

From billow and mountain and exhalation
The sunlight is darted through vapor and blast;
From spirit to spirit, from nation to nation,
From city to hamlet, thy dawning is cast,-
And tyrants and slaves are like shadows of night
In the van of the morning light.

ΤΟ

MINE eyes were dim with tears unshed; Yes, I was firm-thus did not thou;My baffled looks did fear, yet dread,

To meet thy looks-I could not know How anxiously they sought to shine With soothing pity upon mine.

LINES.

FAR, far away, O ye

Halcyons of memory, Seek some far calmer nest Than this abandon'd breast;No news of your false spring To my heart's winter bring, Once having gone, in vain Ye come again.

Vultures, who build your bowers
High in the Future's towers,
Wither'd hopes on hopes are spread,
Dying joys choked by the dead,
Will serve your beaks for prey
Many a day.

SUPERSTITION.

THOU taintest all thou look'st upon! The stars,
Which on thy cradle beam'd so brightly sweet,
Were gods to the distemper'd playfulness
Of thy untutor'd infancy; the trees,

The grass, the clouds, the mountains, and the sea,
All living things that walk, swim, creep, or fly,
Were gods: the sun had homage, and the moon
Her worshipper. Then thou becamest, a boy,
More daring in thy frenzies: every shape,
Monstrous or vast, or beautifully wild,
Which, from sensation's relics, fancy culls;
The spirits of the air, the shuddering ghost,
The genii of the elements, the powers
That give a shape to nature's varied works,
Had life and place in the corrupt belief
Of thy blind heart: yet still thy youthful hands
Were pure of human blood. Then manhood gave
Its strength and ardor to thy frenzied brain;
Thine eager gaze scann'd the stupendous scene,
Whose wonders mock'd the knowledge of thy pride:
Their everlasung and unchanging laws

Reproach'd thine ignorance. Awhile thou stoodest
Baffled and gloomy; then thou didst sum up
The elements of all that thou didst know;
The changing seasons, winter's leafless reign,
The budding of the Heaven-breathing trees,
The eternal orbs that beautify the night,
The sunrise, and the setting of the moon,
Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and disease,
And all their causes, to an abstract point
Converging, thou didst give it name, and form,
Intelligence, and unity, and power.

O! THERE ARE SPIRITS.

ΔΑΚΡΥΕΙ ΔΙΟΙΣΩ ΠΟΤΜΟΝ ΑΠΟΤΜΟΝ.

O! THERE are spirits of the air,

And genii of the evening breeze, And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair

As star-beams among twilight trees :

Such lovely ministers to meet

Oft hast thou turn'd from men thy lonely feet.

With mountain winds, and babbling springs,

And moonlight seas, that are the voice Of these inexplicable things,

Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice When they did answer thee; but they Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.

And thou hast sought in starry eyes

Beams that were never meant for thine, Another's wealth;-tame sacrifice

To a fond faith! still dost thou pine? Still dost thou hope that greeting hands, Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?

Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth's inconstancy?
Did thine own mind afford no scope

Of love, or moving thoughts, to thee?
That natural scenes or human smiles

Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles.

Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled

Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted; The glory of the moon is dead;

Night's ghost and dreams have now departed, Thine own soul still is true to thee,

But changed to a foul fiend through misery.
This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,
Dream not to chase;-the mad endeavor
Would scourge thee to severer pangs.
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.

There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built
Upon some prison-homes, whose dwellers rave
For bread, and gold, and blood: pain, link'd to guilt
Agitates the light flame of their hours,
Until its vital oil is spent or spilt:

There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers
And sacred domes; each marble-ribbed roof,
The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers
Of solitary wealth! The tempest-proof
Pavilions of the dark Italian air,

Are by its presence dimm'd-they stand aloof,
And are withdrawn-so that the world is bare,
As if a spectre, wrapt in shapeless terror,
Amid a company of ladies fair

Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror
Of all their beauty, and their hair and hue,
The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error,
Should be absorb'd till they to marble grew.

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR
ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,
Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep.
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

As an earthquake rocks a corse
In its coffin in the clay,
So white Winter, that rough nurse.
Rocks the death-cold year to-day;
Solemn hours! wait aloud
For your mother in her shroud.

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child, So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the year:-be calm and mild, Trembling hours, she will arise With new love within her eyes.