Oh, that like them 'twere ours to rest!
Daughter of heroes! thou art blest!

A few short years, and in the lonely cave
Where sleeps the Zegri maid, is Hamet's grave.
Severed in life, united in the tomb-

Such, of the hearts that loved so well, the doom!
Their dirge, of woods and waves the eternal moan;
Their sepulchre, the pine-clad rocks alone.
And oft beside the midnight watch-fire's blaze,
Amidst those rocks, in long departed days
(When freedom fled, to hold, sequestered there,
The stern and lofty councils of despair),
Some exiled Moor, a warrior of the wild,
Who the lone hours with mournful strains beguiled,
Hath taught his mountain-home the tale of those
Who thus have suffered, and who thus repose.

"In the reign of Otho III., Emperor of Germany, the Romans, excited by their Consul, Crescentius, who ardently desired to restore the ancient glory of the Republic, made a bold attempt to shake off the Saxon yoke, and the authority of the Popes, whose vices rendered them objects of universal contempt. The Consul was besieged by Otho in the Mole of Hadrian, which long afterwards continued to be called the Tower of Crescentius. Otho, after many unavailing attacks upon this fortress, at last entered into negotiations; and, pledging his imperial word to respect the life of Crescentius, and the rights of the Roman citizens, the unfortunate leader was betrayed into his power, and immediately beheaded, with many of his partisans. Stephania, his widow, concealing her affliction and her resentment for the insults to which she had been exposed, secretly resolved to revenge her husband and herself. On the return of Otho from a pilgrimage to Mount Gargano, which, perhaps, a feeling of remorse had induced him to undertake, she found means to be introduced to him, and to gain his confidence; and a poison administered by her was soon afterwards the cause of his painful death."-See SISMONDI, History of the Italian Republics, vol. i.]

"L'orage peut briser en un moment les fleurs qui tiennent encore la tête levée. MAD. DE STAEL.

'MIDST Tivoli's luxuriant glades,
Bright-foaming falls, and olive shades,
Where dwelt, in days departed long,
The sons of battle and of song,
No tree, no shrub its foliage rears,
But o'er the wrecks of other years,
Temples and domes, which long have been
The soil of that enchanted scene.

There the wild fig-tree and the vine
O'er Hadrian's mouldering villa twine;
The cypress, in funereal grace,
Usurps the vanished column's place;
O'er fallen shrine and ruined frieze
The wall-flower rustles in the breeze;
Acanthus-leaves the marble hide
They once adorned in sculptured pride;
And nature hath resumed her throne
O'er the vast works of ages flown.

Was it for this that many a pile,

Pride of Ilissus and of Nile,
To Anio's banks the image lent
Of each imperial monument?
Now Athens weeps her shattered fanes,
Thy temples, Egypt, strew thy plains ;
And the proud fabrics Hadrian reared
From Tibur's vale have disappeared.
We need no prescient sibyl there
The doom of grandeur to declare;
Each stone, where weeds and ivy climb,
Reveals some oracle of Time;
Each relic utters Fate's decree,
The future as the past shall be.

Halls of the dead! in Tibur's vale,
Who now shall tell your lofty tale?
Who trace the high patrician's dome,
The bard's retreat, the hero's home?
When moss-clad wrecks alone record
There dwelt the world's departed lord,
In scenes where verdure's rich array
Still sheds young beauty o'er decay,
And sunshine on each glowing hill,
'Midst ruins finds a dwelling still.

Sunk is thy palace-but thy tomb,
Hadrian! hath shared a prouder doom,
Though vanished with the days of old
Its pillars of Corinthian mould;
And the fair forms by sculpture wrought,
Each bodying some immortal thought,
Which o'er that temple of the dead,
Serene but solemn beauty shed,
Have found, like glory's self, a grave
In Time's abyss, or Tiber's wave:
Yet dreams more lofty and more fair
Than art's bold hand hath imaged e'er,
High thoughts of many a mighty mind,
Expanding when all else declined,
In twilight years, when only they
Recalled the radiance passed away,
Have made that ancient pile their home,
Fortress of freedom and of Rome.

There he, who strove in evil days
Again to kindle glory's rays,
Whose spirit sought a path of light,
For those dim ages far too bright,-
Crescentius long maintained the strife
Which closed but with its martyr's life,
And left the imperial tomb a name,
A heritage of holier fame.

There closed De Brescia's mission high,
From thence the patriot came to die;
And thou, whose Roman soul the last
Spoke with the voice of ages past,
Whose thoughts so long from earth had fled,
To mingle with the glorious dead,
That 'midst the world's degenerate race
They vainly sought a dwelling-place.
Within that house of death didst brood
O'er visions to thy ruin wooed.
Yet, worthy of a brighter lot,
Rienzi, be thy faults forgot!
For thou, when all around thee lay
Chained in the slumbers of decay-
So sunk each heart, that mortal eye
Had scarce a tear for liberty-
Alone, amidst the darkness there,
Couldst gaze on Rome—yet not despair!

'Tis morn, and Nature's richest dyes
Are floating o'er Italian skies;
Tints of transparent lustre shine

Along the snow-clad Apennine;

The clouds have left Soracte's height,

And yellow Tiber winds in light,

Where tombs and fallen fanes have strewed

The wide Campagna's solitude.

'Tis sad amidst that scene to trace

Those relics of a vanished race;

Yet, o'er the ravaged path of time—

Such glory sheds that brilliant clime,

Where Nature still, though empires fall,
Holds her triumphant festival—

E'en Desolation wears a smile,

Where skies and sunbeams laugh the while;

And heaven's own light, earth's richest bloom, Array the ruin and the tomb.

But she, who from yon convent tower
Breathes the pure freshness of the hour;
She, whose rich flow of raven hair

Streams wildly on the morning air,
Heeds not how fair the scene below,

Robed in Italia's brightest glow.

Though throned 'midst Latium's classic plains The Eternal City's towers and fanes,

And they, the Pleiades of earth,

The seven proud hills of Empire's birth,
Lie spread beneath: not now her glance
Roves o'er that vast sublime expanse ;
Inspired, and bright with hope, 'tis thrown
On Adrian's massy tomb alone:

There, from the storm, when Freedom fled,
His faithful few Crescentius led;
While she, his anxious bride, who now
Bends o'er the scene her youthful brow,
Sought refuge in the hallowed fane,
Which then could shelter, not in vain.

But now the lofty strife is o'er,
And Liberty shall weep no more.
At length imperial Otho's voice
Bids her devoted sons rejoice;
And he, who battled to restore
The glories and the rights of yore,
Whose accents, like the clarion's sound,
Could burst the dead repose around,
Again his native Rome shall see,
The sceptred city of the free!

And young Stephania waits the hour

When leaves her lord his fortress tower,

Her ardent heart with joy elate,

That seems beyond the reach of fate;
Her mien, like creature from above,
All vivified with hope and love.

Fair is her form, and in her eye
Lives all the soul of Italy;
A meaning lofty and inspired,
As by her native day-star fired;
Such wild and high expression, fraught
With glances of impassioned thought,
As fancy sheds, in visions bright,
O'er priestess of the God of Light;
And the dark locks that lend her face
A youthful and luxuriant grace,

Wave o'er her cheek, whose kindling dyes
Seem from the fire within to rise,

But deepened by the burning heaven
To her own land of sunbeams given.
Italian art that fervid glow

Would o'er ideal beauty throw,
And with such ardent life express

Her high-wrought dreams of loveliness,--
Dreams which, surviving Empire's fall,
The shade of glory still recall.

But see-the banner of the brave
O'er Adrian's tomb hath ceased to wave.
'Tis lowered-and now Stephania's eye
Can well the martial train descry,
Who, issuing from that ancient dome,

Pour through the crowded streets of Rome.
Now from her watch-tower on the height,
With step as fabled wood-nymph's light,

M