XXVIII.

And there she stands in ruin! she would weep,
But feeling, hope, yea, memory are flown;
Despair itself is hushed: the stroke, too deep,
Hath hurled her reason headlong from its throne:
Ah! better were it had she madness known;
But still she lives, retaining consciousness;
Look how she stands imploringly in stone!

Her child still grasping in her wild caress,
The passions speaking still that tell ye her distress.

XXIX.

Behold light Hermes-messenger of heaven, On the supporting breath of the wild WindBalanced-ere feather-like through ether driven ! How in that slight form breathes immortal mind, Grace, speed of thought, and freedom unconfined! His arm thrown up, he points, and with a smile, To his own heav'n-Jove's mandate is consigned; Not ev'n Calypso's charms the god beguile; One bound—he leaves afar Ogygia's azure isle!

XXX.

Lo, that lone Statue! feel ye not its breath?

The breath of Love, and yet it is not he:

For his head droops, his eyes are cast beneath :
His torch of joy sinks quenched beside his knee:
Thoughts of the past, and of futurity,

Darken upon his brow; his spirit yearns
For that which he again shall never see;

It is the Genius of Death who mourns:
The Beautiful is gone-alas, and ne'er returns!

XXXI.

No gaunt and grinning mockery of life,

Is he-no Skeleton to fright away

All those fond thoughts with which the heart is rife, Those hallowing memories which know no decay,

But, like affectionate spirits, tend the clay,

Until the soul that cherished them is fled:

Who is he with those downcast eyeballs, say?

"Tis Love himself-not Death-who now doth tread

Upon the desert earth-all, all he loved is dead!

XXXII.

He weeps-and wherefore? Life but takes again The youth, the strength, the beauty which it gave; Why mourn the chainless spirit freed its den?

Is it that we to be immortal crave,

To be unchanged? and that he cannot save
All that he loved, which, first, must undergo

The purgatory of the loathsome grave?

The wish to be undying makes us so!

But, ere the pure fire mount, the dross must sink below.

XXXIII.

What is this Death-this Terror of the Mind?

This Shadow made substantial by our Fear,
Felt, though unseen, the step of Life behind!
For ever distant, yet for ever near;

Mocked by our sleep, whose pillow is the bier
From whence we waken to pursue again

The hopes that, phantom-like, elude us here;
Till tired, at last, we own our efforts vain,
Content to rest in peace beneath his leaden reign.

XXXIV.

Angel of Death! how beautiful art thou!
The solemn beauty thine that Night doth wear
When the Stars lighten o'er her clouded brow:
They paint the terrible who do not dare

To watch thee stedfastly; thy features bear
The marble stillness of eternal rest!

All passions met, repose in slumber there:

All hopes, loves, hatreds, hidden or confessed, Forgotten-are forgot upon thy infinite breast!

XXXV.

To the grief-stricken, thou, so all unmoved,

Art the sole Comforter; 'tis thou alone

Joinest the lover with the dust he loved :

To him who hath immortal longings, none,

Save thou, can'st show what he would look upon;

The Dead-the immortal-and the infinite, Where time and life are swallowed in the One! The Realm of Shadows-the waste Void of Night, Where the soul rests, or speeds its everlasting flight.

XXXVI.

Kings, heroes, seers-the mighty of the Earth,
How have their sumless millions fled to thee!
From whom Life draws its momentary birth;
If they claim not their immortality,

Be ours their nothingness! oh, not to be,
Were better than survive that glorious band!
But if, to shame the accursed Sadducee,

Be ours, beyond the grave, a blessed strand,

'Tis thou who guid'st us, Death, with thy protecting

hand!

XXXVII.

Thou Star above the night of ages shed,

Divinest Plato! do I meet thine eye?

Oh, how my spirit upon thine hath fed

Thou Seer of my young heart's idolatry!

Until a Holier was sent from high,

Thou stood'st on earth man nearest the divine;

Sole Mind that soared to triad Deity!

Truth held within thy breast her chosen shrine:

Let sceptics doubt the soul, thou prov'st immortal

thine.