SOLITUDE.

BY BYRON.

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean ;-
This is not solitude-'tis but to hold

Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But 'midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men, To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,

And roam along, the world's tired denizen, With none who bless us, none whom we can bless; Minions of splendour, shrinking from distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less, Of all that flattered, followed, sought, and sued ;— This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

MIDNIGHT SCENE IN ROME.
BY BYRON.

THE stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful!
I linger yet with Nature; for the night
Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness

I learn'd the language of another world.

I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering, upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,

'Midst the chief relics of all-mighty Rome :
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin, from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near, from out the Cæsar's palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon; yet they stood
Within a bow-shot. Where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levelled battlements
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;
But the gladiator's bloody circus stands
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection;

While Cæsar's chambers and the Augustan halls
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.

And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this; and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old-
The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.

AN ITALIAN SUMMER EVENING.

BY BYRON.

THE moon is up, and yet it is not night— Sunset divides the sky with her—a sea Of glory streams along the Alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains: heaven is free From clouds, but of all colours seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the west, Where the day joins the past eternity; While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air-an island of the blest.

A single star is at her side, and reigns
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still
Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains
Rolled o'er the peak of the fair Rhotian hill,
As day and night contending were until
Nature reclaimed her order: gently flows
The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil
The odorous purple of a new-born rose,

Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows.

Filled with the face of heaven, which from afar Comes down upon the waters, all its hues, From the rich sunset to the rising star,

Their magical variety diffuse:

And now they change; a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new colour as it gasps away,

The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and all is gray.

THE PLAIN OF MARATHON.

BY BYRON.

WHERE'ER we tread, 'tis haunted, holy ground; No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould! But one vast realm of wonder spreads around, And all the Muse's tales seem truly told, Till the sense aches with gazing to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon: Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold, Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone: Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares grey Marathon.

The sun-the soil-but not the slave the same, Unchanged in all except its foreign lord,

Reserves alike its bounds and boundless fame, The battle-field-where Persia's victim horde First bowed beneath the brunt of Hellas' sword, As on the morn to distant glory dear,

When Marathon became a magic wordWhich uttered-to the hero's eye appear The camp-the host-the fight-the conqueror's career!

The flying Mede-his shaftless broken bow,
The fiery Greek-his red pursuing spear.
Mountains above-earth's-ocean's plain below,
Death in the front-destruction in the rear!
Such was the scene-what now remaineth here?
What sacred trophy marks the hallowed ground
Recording freedom's smile and Asia's tear ?-
The rifled urn-the violated mound-

The dust thy courser's hoof, rude stranger! spurns around.

Yet to the remnants of thy splendour past, Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng; Long shall the voyager, with the Ionian blast, Hail the bright clime of battle and of song; Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore; Boast of the aged! lesson of the young! Which sages venerate and bards adore, As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore.

The parted bosom clings to wonted home, If aught that's kindred cheer the welcome hearth; He that is lonely hither let him roam, And gaze complacent on congenial earth. Greece is no lightsome land of social mirth ; But he whom sadness sootheth may abide, And scarce regret the region of his birth, When wandering slow by Delphi's sacred side, Or gazing o'er the plains where Greek and Persian died.

ST. PETER'S CHURCH AT ROME.

BY BYRON.

BUT lo! the dome!—the vast and wondrous dome, To which Diana's marvel was a cell

Christ's mighty shrine, above His martyr's tomb!
I have beheld the Ephesian miracle-

Its columns strew the wilderness, and dwell
Th' hyæna and the jackal in their shade;

I have beheld Sophia's bright roofs swell

Their glitt'ring mass i' the sun, and have survey'd Its sanctuary, the while th' usurping Moslem pray'd.

R