VI.

The Garden of the old Hesperides:

Path to Elysium, where the golden bough
Shed o'er the gloom the soft humanities;
Guiding the filial duty to avow

The love, and the remembrance which we owe
To those o'er whom the dust of earth is spread:
How the light poured there sheds its halo now!
There, where retired, the Spirits of the Dead
Spake, even as Spirits speak, their earthly passions fled.

VII.

And oh! the rapture standing on the spot

Where ye have stood, whose Visions sanctified
Each nook with holiest traditions fraught;

Lo-now the change! no more dark forests hide
Those caverns to the day now opened wide;

The glory is departed: nought behind

Save cold realities of life abide:

But ye with deathless memory are joined:

Art's-nature's works decay, but lives the immortal mind!

VIII.

Again the azure Waters at our feet;

Behold the Bridge, the plaything of the child,
Whose broken and unsightly wrecks repeat

The tale of transient tyranny: what wild
Fancies, in deeds embodied, have defiled

The records of the nations, wrought by those

Whom Power warped, flattered, blinded, and beguiled

From their own natures; but the slaves who chose

Such tyrants, baser in their infamous repose;

IX.

Until the bowl, or dagger's stroke, at last, Asserted change, not freedom-to be won Then, when the shadows of oppression past, Rises that life-invigorating sun, Reviving, strengthening all it looks upon :Then, when again the throne of common right Is reared, whose deep foundations are begun In human hearts: pause here-recal the flight Of time-of triumphs witnessed-the intense delight,

X.

The spirit-stirring scenes of one glad morn,
Recorded; men their common wrongs forget,
Gazing upon the gauds which Power adorn,
The baffled hope, the patriot's vain regret ;
In the vast mass of life according met,

Each doth a part of the bright pageant seem:
Oh! could the monarch stoop but from his state,
And feel a man, and his great pledge redeem,
The golden Age restored no more would be a dream!

XI.

Lo, how again the aërial Bridge spans o'er

The azure waves that idly fret between

Puzzuoli, and Baiæ's golden shore!

The toga'd majesty of Rome is seen
Concentered round: no waters intervene,
Curtained beneath a thousand shadowing sails;

No shore, save where yon myrtle's rising green Shows where the narrowed space o'ercrowded, fails To hold the infinite life, where nought but joy prevails.

XII.

Hark! 'tis the trumpet's martial flourish sounding

Above the applauding multitudes-behold

The youthful Monarch on his charger bounding,
Robed in the imperial toga's purple fold:

Kings, clad in their barbaric pomp and gold,

Arrayed behind: the legion's martial band;

The following crowds in long procession rolled :
The Sea, one heaving life, the tented strand

Covered with Syren-forms that beckon love to land.

XIII.

And he, the first that airy bridge to pass:
O'er the sea, Xerxes-like, his passage swept:
What blessings, or what scourges yield, alas,
Human example! how oft vice had slept,

And slumbering virtue nor rejoiced, nor wept,
Until aroused by Emulation's call,

Even she her path in jealous haste o'erstepped:

Yet was his triumph sweet, the festival

Which asked a second morn, enjoyment's edge to pall.

XIV.

Or turn where yonder mouldering walls confess
The Amphitheatre; within whose bound

The master of the world found happiness;
Even all he asked: his false ambition crowned
In the base rabble's venal shouts, whose sound
Was fame that gave him raptures undisguised:
Were they accorded meed for virtues found?
No-the hired singers' fame alone he prized:

For this, he bowed a slave, by slaves themselves de

spised!

XV.

Burner of Rome, and player of the hour:

Now man, now woman, god-or brute-whose name

By-word became for infamy: whom power

Turned into fiend: yet ev'n this wretch sought fame,

Even he that bright abstraction dared to claim, Stained with each darker crime, which but to hear

Cast o'er Humanity the blush of shame;

Even he could die a monarch, and endear

Himself to one fond heart-that gave his tomb a tear.