I had not left my recent chain;
And when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save.
And yet my glance, too much opprest,
Had almost need of such a rest.

It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count
I took no note,

I had no hope my eyes to raise,

And clear them of their dreary mote; At last men came to set me free,

I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where; It was at length the same to me, Fetter'd or fetterless to be,

I learn'd to love despair.

And thus, when they appear'd at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home:
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watch'd them in their sullen trade,
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learn'd to dwell -
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are: even I
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.

ODE I

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370

380

390

Oh Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,

A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,
What should thy sons do?any thing but

weep:

And yet they only murmur in their sleep. In contrast with their fathers as the

slime,

The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam,
That drives the sailor shipless to his home,
Are they to those that were; and thus they
creep,

that centuries should reap No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears; And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears, And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas

and to the busy hum

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Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds
Were but the overbeating of the heart,
And flow of too much happiness, which needs
The aid of age to turn its course apart
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood
Of sweet sensations battling with the blood.
But these are better than the gloomy errors.
The weeds of nations in their last decay,
When vice walks forth with her unsoften'd
terrors,

And mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay;
And hope is nothing but a false delay,
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere
death,

When faintness, the last mortal birth of pain,
And apathy of limb, the dull beginning

And then he talks of life, and how again
He feels his spirit soaring, albeit weak,
And of the fresher air, which he would seek;
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps,
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps,
And so the film comes o'er him and the
dizzy
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Chamber swims round and round-and shadows busy,

At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam,
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream.
And all is ice and blackness, and the earth
That which it was the moment ere our birth.
II
There is no hope for nations!

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Of many thousand years

Search the page the daily scene,

O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal,
And deem this proof of loyalty the real;
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars,
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars?
All that your sires have left you, all that time
Bequeaths of free, and history of sublime,
Spring from a different theme! — Ye see and
read,

Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed!

Save the few spirits, who, despite of all, So And worse than all, the sudden crimes engender'd

By the down-thundering of the prison-wall, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd,

Gushing from freedom's fountains — when the crowd,

Madden'd with centuries of drought, are loud,
And trample on each other to obtain
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain
Heavy and sore, in which long yoked they
plough'd

The sand, or if there sprung the yellow grain,

'Twas not for them, their necks were too much bow'd,

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The name of commonwealth is past and gone O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe;

Venice is crush'd, and Holland deigns to own
A sceptre, and endures the purple robe;
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone
His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a time,
For tyranny of late is cunning grown, 131
And in its own good season tramples down
The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime,
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean,

As if his senseless sceptre were a wand
Full of the magic of exploded science
Still one great clime, in full and free defiance,
Yet rears her crest, unconquer'd and sublime,
Above the far Atlantic! She has taught
Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag,
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag,
May strike to those whose red right hands
have bought

Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still, forever

Better, though each man's life-blood were a river,

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That it should flow, and overflow, than creep
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins,
Damn'd like the dull canal with locks and
chains,

And moving, as a sick man in his sleep,
Three paces, and then faltering: - better be
Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free,
In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ,
Than stagnate in our marsh, or o'er the
deep

Fly, and one current to the ocean add,
One spirit to the souls our fathers had,
One freeman more, America, to thee!

KNOW YE THE LAND?

160

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle

Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime?

Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle,2

Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime?

Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine;

Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppress'd with perfume,

Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gúl3 in her bloom;

1 Those who have sold their birth-right, Liberty. 2 dove 3 the rose

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Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite.
Nor had that scene of ampler majesty
Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven
And the green earth, lost in his heart its
claims

To love and wonder; he would linger long
In lonesome vales, making the wild his home,
Until the doves and squirrels would partake
From his innocuous hand his bloodless food,
Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks, 102
And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er
The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend
Her timid steps to gaze upon a form
More graceful than her own.

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His wandering step, Obedient to high thoughts, has visited The awful ruins of the days of old: Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec,' and the waste Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers 110 Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids,

Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of

Why dost thou pass away and leave our state, This dim vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate? Byron

Ask why the sunlight not forever

Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river,

Why aught should fail and fade that once is

Such gloom, why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?

No voice from so.ne sublimer world hath ever To sage or poe these responses given 26 Therefore the names of Dæmon, Ghost, and Heaven,

Remain the records of their vain endeavour, Frail spells whose uttered charm might not avail to sever,

From all we hear and all we see,
Doubt, chance, and mutability.

1 Observe that "shower" is a verb.

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