And feed deep thought with many a "ple res dream,

And lingering pause and lightly

tread:

dar Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

Away! we know that tears are vain. That death nor heeds nor hears distress:

Will this unteach us to complain?

Or make one mourner weep the less?
And thou-who tell'st me to forget,
Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.
1814 or 1815. April 23, 1815.

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-beat

ing surf.

Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess:

The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain

The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;

It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;

That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,

And though the eye may sparkle still, 't is where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath,

All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath.

Oh could I feel as I have felt,-or be what I have been,

Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd scene;

As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be, So, midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

March, 1815. 1816.

FARE THEE WELL

"Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain;

But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, not frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.”
COLERIDGE'S Christabel.

FARE thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

Would that breast were bared before thee Where thy head so oft hath lain, While that placid sleep came o'er thee Which thou ne'er canst know again:

Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show !
Then thou wouldst at last discover
T was not well to spurn it so.

Though the world for this commen thee

Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe:

Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;

Love may sink by slow decay, But by sudden wrench, believe not Hearts can thus be torn away :

Still thine own its life retaineth,
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat:
And the undying thought which paine th
Is-that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow

Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widow'd bed.

And when thou wouldst solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow.
Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!"
Though his care she must forego?
When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press'd.
Think of him whose prayer shall bless
thee,

Think of him thy love had bless'd!

Should her lineaments resemble
Those thou never more may'st see.
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken ;

Pride, which not a world could bow,

Bows to thee-by thee forsaken,
Even my soul forsakes me now:

But 't is done-all words are idle

Words from me are vainer still; But the thoughts we cannot bridle Force their way without the will.

!

Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!

Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,

And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,

Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

In my youth's summer I did sing of One, The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;

Again I seize the theme, then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing

Stop!-for thy tread is on an Empire's dust!

An Earthquake's spoil is sepulchred below!

Is the spot mark'd with no colossal bust? Nor column trophied for triumphal show? None; but the moral's truth tells simpler

So,

As the ground was before, thus let it

be:

How that red rain hath made the harvest grow!

And is this all the world has gain'd by
thee,
Thou first and last of fields! king-making
Victory?

And Harold stands upon this place of skulls,

The grave of France, the deadly Waterloo!

How in an hour the power which gave annuls

Its gifts, transferring fame as fleeting too;

In "pride of place "here last the eagle flew,

Then tore with bloody talon the rent plain,

Pierced by the shaft of banded nations through;

Ambition's life and labors all were vain; He wears the shatter'd links of the world's broken chain.