CLXXII.

These might have been her destiny; but no,
Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair,
Good without effort, great without a foe;
But now a bride and mother-and now there!
How many ties did that stern moment tear!
From thy Sire's to this humblest subject's breast
It linked the electric chain of that despair,

Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest The land which loved thee so that none could love thee

CLXXIII.

Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills

So far, that the uprooting wind which tears

The oak from his foundation, and which spills
The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears
Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;

[best.

And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,
All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.
CLXXIV.

And near Albano's scarce divided waves
Shine from a sister valley; and afar
The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,
"Arms and the Man," whose re-ascending star
Rose o'er an empire;-but beneath thy right
Tully reposed from home;-and where yon bar
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight
The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight.
CLXXV.

But I forget.-My pilgrim's shrine is won,
And he and I must part,-so let it be,-
His task and mine alike are nearly done;
Yet once more let us look upon the sea;
The midland ocean breaks on him and me,
And from the Alban Mount we now behold
Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we
Beheid it last by Calpe's rock unfold

Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine roll'd.

CLXXVI.

Upon the blue Syraplagades: long years

Long, though not very many, since have done Their work on both; some suffering and some tears Have left us nearly where we had begun; Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run, We have had our reward-and it is here! That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun, And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear As if there were no man to trouble what is clear. CLXXVII.

Oh! that the Desart were my dwelling place,
With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her!
Ye Elements!in whose ennobling stir
I feel myself exhalted-Can ye not
Accord me such a being? Do I err
In deeming such inhabit many a spot?
Though with thein to converse can rarely be our lot.
CLXXVIII.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar :
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From, these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.
CLXXIX.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his controul
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
-The wrecks are all thy deed,nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sins into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown,

CLXXX.

His steps are not upon thy paths,―thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay.
CLXXXI.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to desarts:-not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play— Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

CLXXXIII.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempest: in all time,

1

Calm or convuls'd-in breeze, or gale, or storin,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving-boundless, endless, and sublime-
The image of Eternity-the throne

Of the luvisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

CLXXXIV.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear
For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.
CLXXXV.

My task is done-my song hath ceased-my theme
Has died into an écho; it is fit

The spell should break of this protracted dream.
The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath lit
My midnight lamp-and what is writ, is writ,—
Would it were worthier! but I am not now
That which I have been-and my visions flit
Less palpably before me-and the glow

Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering, faint, and low.
CLXXXVI.

Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been-
A sound which makes us linger;-yet-farewell!
Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene
Which is his last, if in your memories dwell
A thought which once was his, if on ye swell
A single recollection, not in vain

He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell;
Farewell with him alone may rest the pain,
If such there were-with you, the moral of his strain !

END OF CANTO THE FOURTH.

1. The communication between the Ducal palace and the prisons of Venice is a gloomy bridge, or covered gallery, high above the water, and divided by a stone wall into a passage and a cell.

2. An old writer, describing the appearance of Venice, has made use of the above image, which would not be poetical were it not true.

3. The well known song of the gondoliers, of alternate stanzas, from Tasso's Jerusalem, has died with the independance of Venice.

4. The answer of the mother of Brasidas to the strangers who praised the memory of her son.

5. The lion has lost nothing by his journey to the Invalides, but the gospel which supported the paw that is now on a level with the other foot.

6. After many vain efforts on the part of the Italians, entirely to throw off the yoke of Frederic Barbarosse, and as fruitless attempts of the Emperor to make himself absolute master throughout the whole of his Cisalpine dominions, the bloody struggles of four and twenty years, were happily brought to a close in the city of Venice.

7. The reader will recollect the exclamation of the highlaudér, Oh for one hour of Dundee !

8. After the loss of the battle of Pola, an embassy was sent to the conquerors with a blank sheet of paper, pray. ing them to describe what terms they pleased, and leave to Venice only her independance. The Prince of Padua was inclined to listen to the proposals, but the Genoese, who, after the victory at Pola, had shouted, " to Venice, to Venice, and long live St. George," determined to anni, hilate their rival, and Peter Doria, their commander-inchief, returned this answer to the supplicants, “On God's faith, gentlemen of Venice, ye shall have no peace from the Signor of Padua, nor from our commune of Genoa, until we have first put a rein upon those unbridled horses of yours, that are upon the Porch of your evangelist St. Mark. Wild as they may be we will soon make them stand still. And this is the pleasure of us and of our commune,