LXXXI. But Jealousy has fled his bars, his bolts, With braided tresses bounding o'er the green, While on the gay dance shone Night's lover-loving Queen? LXXXII. Oh! many a time, and oft, had Harold loved, Or dream'd he loved, since Rapture is a dream; But now his wayward bosom was unmoved, For not yet had he drunk of Lethe's stream; And lately had he learn'd with truth to deem Love has no gift so grateful as his wings: How fair, how young, how soft soe'er he seem, Full from the fount of Joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings. (') LXXXIII. Yet to the beauteous form he was not blind, Though now it moved him as it moves the wise; E'er deign'd to bend her chastely-awful eyes : LXXXIV. Still he beheld, nor mingled with the throng; Fain would he now have join'd the dance, the song; To charms as fair as those that soothed his happier day. "Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquil quod in ipsis floribus angut." Luc. D TO INEZ. 1. NAY, smile not at my sullen brow; 2. And dost thou ask, what secret woe 3. It is not love, it is not hate Nor low Ambition's honours lost, That bids me loathe my present state, And fly from all I prized the most: 4. It is that weariness which springs From all I meet, or hear, or see: To me no pleasure Beauty brings; 5. It is that settled, ceaseless gloom The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore; That will not look beyond the tomb, But cannot hope for rest before. 6. What Exile from himself can flee? To Zones, though more and more remote, Still, still pursues, where-e'er I be, The blight of life-the demon Thought. 7. Yet others rapt in pleasure seem, And ne'er, at least like me, awake! 8. Through many a clime 'tis mine to go, Whate'er betides, I've known the worst. 9. What is that worst? Nay do not ask – In pity from the search forbear: Smile on- nor venture to unmask Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there. LXXXV. Adieu, fair Cadiz ! yea, a long adieu! Who may forget how well thy walls have stood? Some native blood was seen thy streets to die; Here all were noble, save Nobility; None hugg'd a conqueror's chain, save fallen Chivalry! LXXXVI. Such be the sons of Spain, and strange her fate! They fight for freedom who were never free ; A Kingless people for a nerveless state, Her vassals combat when their chieftains flee, Fond of a land which gave them nought but life War, war is still the cry, " War even to the knife !” (”) LXXXVII. Ye, who would more of Spain and Spaniards know, Go, read whate'er is writ of bloodiest strife: (1) Alluding to the conduct and death of Solano, the governor of Cadiz. (2) "War to the knife." Palafox's answer to the French general at the siege of Saragoza. War mouldeth there each weapon to his need So may he make each curst oppressor bleed, LXXXVIII. Flows there a tear of pity for the dead? Let their bleach'd bones, and blood's unbleaching stain, LXXXIX. Nor yet, alas! the dreadful work is done; XC. Not all the blood at Talavera shed, Not all the marvels of Barossa's fight, Have won for Spain her well-asserted right. XCI. And thou, my friend! (1) · since unavailing woe 1) The Honourable I*. W**. of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra. I had known him ten years, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. Io the short space of one month, I have lost her who gave me being, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction: Had the sword laid thee with the mighty low, XCII. Oh, known the earliest, and esteem'd the most! XCIII. Here is one fytte of Harold's pilgrimage: Ere Greece and Grecian arts by barbarous hands were quell'd. "Insatiate archer! could not one suffice? Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain, I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, were he not too much above all praise of mine. His powers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, against the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on the spot where it was acquired: while his softer qualities live in the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy his superiority. |