Titan! to thee the strife was given
Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of fate,
The ruling principle of hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity

Was thine-and thou hast borne it well.
All that the thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy silence was his sentence,
And in his soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.

Thy godlike crime was to be kind,

To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse

Of thine impenetrable spirit,

Which earth and heaven could not convulse,

A mighty lesson we inherit:

Thou art a symbol and a sign

To mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure source:
And man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his spirit may oppose
Itself-an equal to all woes,

And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry

Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making death a victory.

ODE TO VENICE.

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,

Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping
Oh! agony-that centuries should reap [streets.
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

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

Of the cold staggering race which death is winning,
Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away;
Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay
To him appears renewal of his breath,

And freedom the mere numbness of his chain;-
And then he talks of life, and how again
He feels his spirits 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
Chamber swims round and round-and shadows
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.

There is no hope for nations!-Search the page
Of many thousand years-the daily scene,
The flow and ebb of each recurring age,
The everlasting to be which hath been,
Hath taught us nought or little: still we lean
On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear
Our strength away in wrestling with the air;
For 'tis our nature strikes us down: the beasts
Slaughter'd in hourly hecatombs for feasts
Are of as high an order—they must go [slaughter.
Even where their driver goads them, though to
Ye men,
who pour your blood for kings as water,
What have they given your children in return?
A heritage of servitude and woes,

A blindful bondage, where your hire is blows.
What! do not yet the red-hot ploughshares burn,
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,
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,

And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain:-
Yes! the few spirits-who, despite of deeds
Which they abhor, confound not with the cause
Those momentary starts from nature's laws,
Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite
But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth
With all her seasons to repair the blight
With a few summers, and again put forth
Cities and generations-fair, when free-
For, tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee!

Glory and empire! once upon these towers
With freedom-godlike Triad! how ye sate!
The league of mightiest nations, in those hours
When Venice was an envy, might abate,
But did not quench, her spirit-in her fate
All were enwrapp'd: the feasted monarchs knew
And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate,
Although they humbled-with the kingly few
The many felt, for from all days and climes
She was the voyager's worship;-even her crimes
Were of the softer order-born of love,
She drank no blood, nor fatten'd on the dead,
But gladden'd where her harmless conquests spread:
For these restored the cross, that from above
Hallow'd her sheltering banners, which incessant
Flew between earth and the unholy crescent,

Which, if it waned and dwindled, earth may thank
The city it has clothed in chains, which clank
Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe
The name of freedom to her glorious struggles;
Yet she but shares with them a common woe,
And call'd the " kingdom" of a conquering foe,-
But knows what all-and, most of all, we know—
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!

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, And in its own good season tramples down The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime, Whose vigourous offspring by dividing ocean Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion Of freedom, which their fathers fought for, and Bequeath'd-a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land, Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion, As if his senseless sceptre were a wand Full of the magic of exploded scienceStill 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, [bought May strike to those whose red right hands have Rights cheaply earn'd with blood. Still, still, for ever Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, That it should flow, and overflow, than creep Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, Damm'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!

TO THE INVISIBLE GIRL.
They try to persuade me, my dear little sprite,
That you are not a daughter of ether and light,
Nor have any concern with those fanciful forms
That dance upon rainbows and ride upon storms;
That, in short, you're a woman; your lip and your
As mortal as ever were tasted or prest! [breast
But I will not believe them-no, science! to you
I have long bid a last and a careless adieu:
Still flying from nature to study her laws,
And dulling delight by exploring its cause,
You forget how superior, for mortals below,

Is the fiction they dream to the truth that they know.
Oh! who, that has ever had rapture complete,
Would ask how we feel it, or why it is sweet;
How rays are confus'd, or how particles fly
Through the medium refin'd of a glance or a sigh!
Is there one, who but once would not rather have
known it,

Than written, with Harvey, whole volumes upon it?
No, no-
—but for you, my invisible love,

I will swear, you are one of those spirits, that rove
By the bank where, at twilight, the poet reclines,
When the star of the west on his solitude shines,
And the magical fingers of fancy have hung
Every breeze with a sigh, every leaf with a tongue!
Oh! whisper him then, 'tis retirement alone
Can hallow his harp or ennoble its tone;
Like you, with a veil of seclusion between,
His song to the world let him utter unseen;
And like you, a legitimate child of the spheres,
Escape from the eye to enrapture the ears!
Sweet spirit of mystery! how I should love,
In the wearisome ways I am fated to rove,
To have you for ever invisibly nigh,
Inhaling for ever your song and your sigh!
Mid the crowds of the world and the murmurs of

I might sometimes converse with my nymph of the
And turn with disgust from the clamorous crew,
To steal in the pauses one whisper from you.

Oh! come and be near me, for ever be mine,
We shall hold in the air a communion divine,
As sweet as, of old, was imagin'd to dwell
In the grotto of Numa, or Socrates' cell.

And oft, at those lingering moments of night, [light,
When the heart is weigh'd down and the eyelid is
You shall come to my pillow and tell me of love,
Such as angel to angel might whisper above!
Oh spirit!-and then, could you borrow the tone
Of that voice, to my ear so bewitchingly known,
The voice of the one upon earth, who has twin'd
With her essence for ever my heart and my mind!

Though lonely and far from the light of her smile,
An exile and weary and hopeless the while,
Could you shed for a moment that voice on my ear,
I will think at that moment my Cara is near,
That she comes with consoling enchantment to speak,
And kisses my eyelid and sighs on my cheek,
And tells me, the night shall go rapidly by,
For the dawn of our hope, of our heav'n is nigh!

Sweet spirit! if such be your magical power,
It will lighten the lapse of full many an hour;
And let fortune's realities frown as they will,
Hope, fancy, and Cara may smile for me still!

TO NEA.

Well-peace to thy heart, though another's it be,
And health to thy cheek, though it bloom not for me!
To-morrow, I sail for those cinnamon groves,
Where nightly the ghost of the Carribee roves,
And, far from thine eye, oh! perhaps, I may yet
Its seduction forgive and its splendour forget!
Farewell to Bermuda, and long may the bloom
Of the lemon and myrtle its valleys perfume;
May spring to eternity hallow the shade,
Where Ariel has warbled and Waller has stray'd!
And thou-when, at dawn, thou shalt happen to roam
Through the lime-cover'd alley that leads to thy
home,

Where oft, when the dance and the revel were done,
And the stars were beginning to fade in the sun,

I have led thee along, and have told by the way What my heart all the night had been burning to

say

Oh! think of the past-give a sigh to those times, And a blessing for me to that alley of limes!

TO JOSEPH ATKINSON, ESQ.
FROM BERMUDA.

"The daylight is gone-but, before we depart, One cup shall go round to the friend of my heart, To the kindest, the dearest-oh! judge by the tear, That I shed while I name him, how kind and how dear!"

'Twas thus, by the shade of a calabash tree, With a few, who could feel and remember like me, The charm, that to sweeten my goblet I threw, Was a tear to the past and a blessing on you!

Oh! say, do you thus, in the luminous hour Of wine and of wit, when the heart is in flower And shoots from the lip, under Bacchus's dew,

In blossoms of thought ever springing and new!
Do you sometimes remember, and hallow the brim
Of your cup with a sigh, as you crown it to him,
Who is lonely and sad in these valleys so fair,
And would pine in elysium, if friends were not there!

Last night, when we came from the calabash-tree, When my limbs were at rest and my spirit was free, The glow of the grape and the dreams of the day Put the magical springs of my fancy in play, And oh!-such a vision as haunted me then I could slumber for ages to witness again! The many I like, and the few I adore, The friends, who were dear and beloved before, But never till now so beloved and dear, At the call of my fancy surrounded me here! Soon, soon did the flattering spell of their smile To a paradise brighten the blest little isle; Serener the wave, as they look'd on it, flow'd, And warmer the rose, as they gather'd it, glow'd! Not the valleys Heræn (though water'd by rills Of the pearliest flow, from those pastoral hills, Where the song of the shepherd, primæval and wild, Was taught to the nymphs by their mystical child,) Could display such a bloom of delight, as was given By the magic of love to this miniature heaven!

Oh magic of love! unembellish'd by you, Has the garden a blush or the herbage a hue? Or blooms there a prospect in nature or art, Like the vista that shines through the eye to the heart?

Alas! that a vision so happy should fade! That, when morning around me in brilliancy play'd, The rose and the stream I had thought of at night Should still be before me, unfadingly bright; While the friends, who had seem'd to hang over the stream,

And to gather the roses, had fled with my dream!

But see, through the harbour, in floating array, The bark that must carry these pages away, Impatiently flutters her wing to the wind, And will soon leave the bowers of Ariel behind! What billows, what gales is she fated to prove, Ere she sleep in the lee of the land that I love! Yet pleasant the swell of those billows would be, And the sound of those gales would be music to me! Not the tranquillest air that the winds ever blew, Not the silvery lapse of the summer-eve dew, Were as sweet as the breeze, or as bright as the foam Of the wave, that would carry your wanderer home!

LYING.

Che con le lor bugie pajon divini.

MAURO D'ARCANO.

I do confess, in many a sigh
My lips have breath'd you many a lie,
And who, with such delights in view,
Would lose them for a lie or two?

Nay-look not thus, with brow reproving;
Lies are, my dear, the soul of loving!
If half we tell the girls were true,
If half we swear to think and do,
Were aught but lying's bright illusion,
The world would be in strange confusion!

If ladies' eyes were, every one,
As lovers swear, a radiant sun,
Astronomy should leave the skies,
To learn her lore in ladies' eyes!
Oh no!-believe me, lovely girl,
When nature turns your teeth to pearl,
Your neck to snow, your eyes to fire,
Your yellow locks to golden wire,
Then, only then, can heaven decree
That you should live for only me,
Or I for you, as, night and morn,
We've swearing kist, and kissing sworn!

And now, my gentle hints to clear,
For once, I'll tell you truth, my dear!
Whenever you may chance to meet
A loving youth, whose love is sweet,
Long as you're false and he believes you,
Long as you trust and he deceives you,
So long the blissful bond endures;
And while he lies, his heart is yours:
But, oh! you've wholly lost the youth,
The instant that he tells you truth!

TO THOMAS HUME, ESQ. M.D.
FROM THE CITY OF WASHINGTON.

'Tis evening now; the heats and cares of day
In twilight dews are calmly wept away.
The lover now, beneath the western star,
Sighs through the medium of his sweet segar,
And fills the ears of some consenting she
With puffs and vows, with smoke and constancy!
The weary statesman for repose hath fled
From halls of council to his negro's shed,
Where blest he woos some black Aspasia's grace,
And dreams of freedom in his slave's embrace!

In fancy now, beneath the twilight gloom, Come, let me lead thee o'er this modern Rome! Where tribunes rule, where dusky Davi bow, And what was Goose-Creek once is Tiber now! This fam'd metropolis, where Fancy sees Squares in morasses, obelisks in trees; Which travelling fools and gazetteers adorn With shrines unbuilt and heroes yet unborn, Where nought but wood and ********* they see, Where streets should run and sages ought to be!

And look, how soft in yonder radiant wave, The dying sun prepares his golden grave!— Oh great Potowmac! oh you banks of shade! You mighty scenes in nature's morning made, While still, in rich magnificence of prime, She pour'd her wonders, lavishly sublime,

Nor yet had learn'd to stoop, with humbler care,
From grand to soft, from wonderful to fair!
Say were your towering hills, your boundless floods,
Your rich savannas and majestic woods,
Where bards should meditate and heroes rove,
And woman charm and man deserve her love!
Oh! was a world so bright but born to grace
Its own half-organiz'd, half-minded race
Of weak barbarians, swarming o'er its breast,
Like vermin gender'd on the lion's crest?
Were none but brutes to call that soil their home,
Where none but demi-gods should dare to roam?
Or worse, thou mighty world! oh! doubly worse,
Did heaven design thy lordly land to nurse
The motley dregs of every distant clime,
Each blast of anarchy, and taint of crime,
Which Europe shakes from her perturbed sphere,
In full malignity to rankle here?

But hush!-observe that little mount of pines,
Where the breeze murmurs and the fire-fly shines,
There let thy fancy raise, in bold relief,
The sculptur'd image of that veteran chief,
Who lost the rebel's in the hero's name,
And stept o'er prostrate loyalty to fame;
Beneath whose sword Columbia's patriot train
Cast off their monarch that their mob might reign!

How shall we rank thee upon glory's page? Thou more than soldier and just less than sage! Too form'd for peace to act a conqueror's part, Too train'd in camps to learn a statesman's art, Nature design'd thee for a hero's mould, But, ere she cast thee, let the stuff grow cold! While warmer souls command, nay make their fate, Thy fate made thee and forc'd thee to be great. Yet Fortune, who so oft, so blindly sheds Her brightest halo round the weakest heads, Found thee undazzled, tranquil as before, Proud to be useful, scorning to be more; Less prompt at glory's than at duty's claim, Renown the meed, but self-applause the aim; All thou hast been reflects less fame on thee, Far less than all thou hast forborne to be!

Now turn thine eye where faint the moonlight falls On yonder dome-and in those princely halls, If thou can'st hate, as, oh! that soul must hate, Which loves the virtuous and reveres the great, If thou canst loath and execrate with me That Gallic garbage of philosophy, That nauseous slaver of those frantic times, With which false liberty dilutes her crimes! If thou hast got, within thy free-born breast, One pulse that beats more proudly than the rest, With honest scorn for that inglorious soul, Which creeps and winds beneath a mob's controul, Which courts the rabble's smile, the rabble's nod, And makes, like Egypt, every beast its god! There, in those walls---but, burning tongue, forbear! Rank must be reverenc'd, even the rank that's there: So here I pause---and now, my Hume! we part; But oh! full oft, in magic dreams of heart,

Thus let us meet, and mingle converse dear
By Thames at home, or by Potowmac here!
O'er lake and marsh, thro' fevers and thro' fogs,
Midst bears and yankees, democrats and frogs,
Thy foot shall follow me, thy heart and eyes
With me shall wonder, and with me despise!
While I, as oft, in witching thought shall rove
To thee, to friendship, and that land I love,
Where, like the air that fans her fields of green,
Her freedom spreads, unfever'd and serene;
Where sovereign man can condescend to see
The throne and laws more sovereign still than he!

CLORIS AND FANNY. Cloris! if I were Persia's king,

I'd make my graceful queen of thee; While Fanny, wild and artless thing, Should but thy humble handmaid be. There is but one objection in it

That, verily, I'm much afraid
I should, in some unlucky minute,
Forsake the mistress for the maid!

QUINTILIAN.

A CANADIAN BOAT SONG.
Et remigem cantus hortatur.
Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune, and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!

Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl!
But, when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!

Utawa's tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh! grant us cool heavens and favouring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!

FROM THE TWOPENNY POST-BAG.

LETTER II.

FROM COLONEL M'M-H-N TO G-LD FR-NC-S
L-CKIE, ESQ.

Dear Sir, I've just had time to look
Into your very learned Book:
Wherein as plain as man can speak,
Whose English is half modern Greek-
You prove that we can ne'er intrench
Our happy isles against the French,
Till Royalty in England's made