Stanzas.

But left long wrecks behind them, and again
Borne on our old unchanged career, we move;
Thou tendest wildly onward to the main,
And I to loving one I should not love.

The current I behold will sweep beneath

Her native walls, and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharm'd by summer's heat.

She will look on thee; I have look'd on thee,
Full of that thought, and from that moment ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her.

Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream;
Yes, they will meet the wave I gaze on now;
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow.

The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore;
I near thy source, she by the dark blue deep.

But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,

As various as the climates of our birth.

A stranger loves a lady of the land,

Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fann'd

By the bleak wind that chills the polar flood.

233

My blood is all meridian; were it not,
I had not left my clime;-I shall not be,
In spite of tortures ne'er to be forgot,
A slave again of love, at least of thee.

'Tis vain to struggle-let me perish young―
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved :
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then at least my heart can ne'er be moved.

Address

TO THE ALABASTER SARCOPHAGUS,

DEPOSITED IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

BY HORACE SMITH.

HOU alabaster relic! while I hold

TH

My hand upon thy sculptured margin thrown,

Let me recall the scenes thou couldst unfold,

Might'st thou relate the changes thou hast known;

For thou wert primitive in thy formation,

Launch'd from the Almighty's hand at the creation.

Yes-thou wert present when the stars and skies And worlds unnumber'd roll'd into their places; When God from chaos bade the spheres arise,

And fix'd the blazing sun upon its basis, And with His finger on the bounds of space Mark'd out each planet's everlasting race.

Address.

How many thousand ages from thy birth

Thou slept'st in darkness it were vain to ask, Till Egypt's sons upheaved thee from the earth,

And year by year pursued their patient task, Till thou wert carved and decorated thus, Worthy to be a king's sarcophagus.

What time Elijah to the skies ascended,
Or David reign'd in holy Palestine,
Some ancient Theban monarch was extended
Beneath the lid of this emblazon'd shrine,
And to that subterraneous palace borne
Which toiling ages in the rock had worn.

Thebes, from her hundred portals, fill'd the plain,
To see the car on which thou wert upheld.
What funeral pomps extended in thy train,

What banners waved, what mighty music swell'd,
As armies, priests, and crowds bewail'd in chorus,
Their King-their God-their Serapis-their Orus!

Thus to thy second quarry did they trust
Thee, and the lord of all the nations round,
Grim king of silence! Monarch of the dust!
Embalm'd, anointed, jewell'd, sceptred, crown'd,
Here did he lie in state, cold, stiff, and stark,
A leathern Pharaoh grinning in the dark.

Thus ages roll'd; but their dissolving breath
Could only blacken that imprison'd thing,
Which wore a ghastly royalty in death,
As if it struggled still to be a king;
And each dissolving century, like the last,
Just dropp'd its dust upon thy lid, and pass'd.

235

The Persian conqueror o'er Egypt pour'd

His devastating host-a motley crew; The steel-clad horsemen-the barbarian hordeMusic and men of every sound and hue— Priests, archers, eunuchs, concubines, and brutes— Gongs, trumpets, cymbals, dulcimers, and lutes.

Then did the fierce Cambyses tear away

The ponderous rock that seal'd the sacred tomb; Then did the slowly penetrating ray

Redeem thee from long centuries of gloom, And lower'd torches flash'd against thy side, As Asia's king thy blazon'd trophies eyed.

Pluck'd from his grave, with sacrilegious taunt,
The features of the royal corse they scann'd;
Dashing the diadem from his temple gaunt,

They tore the sceptre from his graspless hand; And on those fields, where once his will was law, Left him for winds to waste and beasts to gnaw.

Some pious Thebans, when the storm was past,
Upclosed the sepulchre with cunning skill,
And nature, aiding their devotion, cast

Over its entrance a concealing rill;

Then thy third darkness came, and thou didst sleep Twenty-three centuries in silence deep.

But he from whom nor pyramids nor sphynx
Can hide its secrecies, Belzoni came ;

From the tomb's mouth unlink'd the granite links,
Gave thee again to light, and life, and fame,
And brought thee from the sands and deserts forth,
To charm the pallid children of the north!

To a Lady.

Thou art in London, which, when thou wert new,
Was what Thebes is, a wilderness and waste,
Where savage beasts more savage men pursue;
A scene by nature cursed, by man disgraced.
Now, 'tis the world's metropolis !—the high
Queen of arms, learning, arts, and luxury!

Here, where I hold my hand, 'tis strange to think
What other hands, perchance, preceded mine;
Others have also stood beside thy brink,

And vainly conn'd the moralising line!

Kings, sages, chiefs, that touch'd this stone like me,
Where are ye now ?—Where all must shortly be.

237

All is mutation;—he within this stone

Was once the greatest monarch of the hour.
His bones are dust--his very name unknown !—
Go, learn from him the vanity of power;
Seek not the frame's corruption to control,
But build a lasting mansion for thy soul.

A

To a Lady.

BY LORD BYRON.

ND wilt thou weep when I am low?

Sweet lady! speak these words again;

Yet, if they grieve thee, say not so;

I would not give that bosom pain.