LXXXIV.

To muse upon the past; life's early hope,

Its aim, and failure, and despair, when found
How weak our strength with passion's host to cope;
Shall not these fetters be, at last, unbound,

That chain our soul, still baffled, to the ground?
No-for unproved were then our mortal part:
The softened moral, and the thought profound,
The vain remorse, the darkest memories start
From the deep tideless calm of him of sated heart!

LXXXV.

Yet not of sorrow-he who life hath proved,
Feels luxury in tears that flow within,

Leaving the brow unwrinkled and unmoved:

And thou wert happy; living, thou didst win

Thy fame the quiet spot, in which begin

And end our hopes, was thine; and though thy breast Poured forth its gratitude in this soft scene,

Yet was not half thy happiness confessed;

All the heart's finest chords die with us unexpressed!

LXXXVI.

Thy house is not thy tomb: the very place
On which it stood is not; for earth is fraught
With change, and doth, like Time, her forms efface :
Thou couldst not die! thy life, which is thy Thought,
Is self-existent, and with ours is wrought,

Transfused through mind for ever; what is death ?—
To sink into the earth and be forgot;

To leave behind no trace; to hang no wreath

Above our grave to tell who lived-loved-felt-beneath.

LXXXVII.

Nay, be such phantasies forgiven! yet who

Can think of thee, nor feel, that, like a charm,

Thy name, sweet HORACE ! doth those thoughts renew,

And feelings which again our bosom warm,

And of austerer moods of mind disarm :

Who hath not sighed, in youth or age, to flee

To the fond covert of thy Sabine farm?

To share thy pride, thy manly dignity,

The freeman's fearless spirit, aye, avowed by thee!

LXXXVIII.

Poet of human nature! to all ages

Thou speakest, to all tongues, to every clime:
Thy varying lay the heart excites, assuages:
Gentle, sad, wayward, trifling, or sublime,

Well didst thou match thy fame against all time,
For thou had'st that within to answer back

The life of ages dwelling on thy rhyme :

The hope, the grief, the prayer, the jealous rack,—

All thy own feelings share who walk our human track.

LXXXIX.

Who felt the nothingness of human life,

Profoundly as thyself? for thou had'st tried

All-both the solitude and social strife;

Who hath so gently probed our weaker pride?

Or given us moral armour to abide

The strokes of fortune? who so well hath shown

The wisdom to enjoy life's eventide,

Gratefully, while the hour is yet our own,

Ere life and time, the shades, from us, like thee, be

flown?

XC.

"How much of time is lost in petty strife
"With trifles; here, unmoved by hope or fear,
"I commune with myself; true, genuine life!
"Grateful and honourable rest; more dear

"Than noblest offices; thou Nurse severe
"Of solemn thought, who dost all thought sustain,
"How hast thou, Solitude! inspired me here:

"Thou bid'st me idly not of life complain,

"But stamp upon the age my impress, not in vain."

XCI.

And where breathes Nature truer Oracles

Than in thy depths, romantic Tivoli !

Here, where the Spirit of past ages dwells,

Lulled by the Waters' Voice of prophecy !

Endiademed with craggy majesty,

And plumed with woods that shed a horror round; From the profoundest chasm lift up thine eye!

Lo-o'er yon far off points extremest bound,

Abrupt, hung imminent against the blue profound,

XCII.

The Sibyl's temple stands, the earthly link

That draws ye from those sunken depths to heaven, Based on the precipice's airy brink!

The Arno rushes downward headlong driven

O'er the crushed rocks in its wild pathway riven,
Chaos of Waters!—but ye heed them not;

In vain the flowers to catch thine eye have striven,
Or the wild terrors of the Syren's Grot:

Eye, sense, and soul absorbed, are fixed upon the spot,

XCIII.

Where that wrecked Image of the Beautiful
Yet sits within its undecaying shrine !
Looking an eloquence which doth o'er-rule

The heart far more than language, though divine
Were he who spake; how swells the flowing line
Of light and delicate proportion there!
How the grey tints, while mellowing, refine:
Giving a speaking sadness to its air,

A venerable grace! which now appears more fair,