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Their children's lips shall echo them and say"Here, where the sword united nations drew, Our countrymen were warring on that day!"

And this is much, and all which will not pass away.
There sunk the greatest, nor the worst, of men,
Whose spirit antithetically mixt

One moment of the mightiest, and again
On little objects with like firmness fixt,
Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt,
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been!
For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st
Even how to re-assume the imperial mien,

And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!

She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name

Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,
Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert
A god unto thyself; nor less the same

To the astounded kingdoms all inert,

Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.

Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them

Ambition steel'd thee on too far to show

That just habitual scorn, which could contemn

Men and their thoughts; 't was wise to feel, not so

To wear it ever on thy lip and brow,

And spurn the instruments thou wert to use

Till they were turn'd unto thine overthrow.

'Tis but a worthless world to win or lose ;

So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who choose.

If, like a tower upon a headlong rock,

Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone,

Such scorn of man had help'd to brave the shock;

But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, Their admiration thy best weapon shone;

The part of Philip's son was thine, not then (Unless aside thy purple had been thrown) Like stern Diogenes to mock at men;

For sceptred cynics earth were far too wide a den.

EPISTLE TO AUGUSTA,

THE POET'S SISTER, THE HONOURABLE MRS. LEIGH.
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 same,—
A 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;

* An allusion to the remarkable casualties which always befell Admiral Byron, who is said never to have made a voyage without encountering a tempest.

And when I look on this, the petty spray
Of my own years of trouble, which have roll'd
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;
Perhaps a kinder clime, or purer air,
(For even to this may change of soul refer,
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 inspire:
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.

grow

O that thou wert but with me!-But I
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.

*The water which adorns the grounds at Newstead-Abbey.

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 comply,

It 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

before.

To baffled millions which have gone
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 farther.-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 art-
Beings 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!

THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,

But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,

With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

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