Alone; but sorrow mixed with sad surprise
Loosened the springs of pity in all eyes,
In which that form whose fate they weep
in vain

Will never, thought they, kindle smiles again. The lamps, which, half extinguished in their haste,

Gleamed few and faint o'er the abandoned

feast,

Showed as it were within the vaulted room
A cloud of sorrow hanging, as if gloom
Had passed out of men's minds into the air.
Some few yet stood around Gherardi there,
Friends and relations of the dead;—and he,
A loveless man, accepted torpidly

The consolation that he wanted not;

Awe in the place of grief within him wrought.
Their whispers made the solemn silence seem
More still.
Some wept;

Some melted into tears without a sob;

And some, with hearts that might be heard to throb,

Leant on the table, and at intervals

Shuddered to hear through the deserted halls And corridors the thrilling shrieks which

came

Upon the breeze of night, that shook the flame

Of every torch and taper as it swept

From out the chamber where the women kept.

Their tears fell on the dear companion cold
Of pleasures now departed. Then

knolled

was

The bell of death; and soon the priests arrived,

And, finding Death their penitent had shrived,
Returned, like ravens from a corse whereon
A vulture has just feasted to the bone.
And then the mourning women came.

THE DIRGE.

OLD Winter was gone

In his weakness back to the mountains hoar; And the Spring came down

From the planet that hovers upon the shore

Where the sea of sunlight encroaches
On the limits of wintry night.

If the land and the air and the sea
Rejoice not when Spring approaches,
We did not rejoice in thee,
Ginevra!

She is still, she is cold,
On the bridal couch!

One step to the white death-bed,
And one to the bier,

And one to the charnel, and one-oh where?
The dark arrow fled

In the noon.

Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled,

The rats in her heart

Will have made their nest,

And the worms be alive in her golden hair.
While the Spirit that guides the sun
Sits throned in his flaming chair,
She shall sleep.

1821.

XI.

O MIGHTY mind, in whose deep stream this

age

Shakes like a reed in the unheeding storm, Why dost thou curb not thine own sacred rage?

1818.

XII.

THE fierce beasts of the woods and wilder

nesses

Track not the steps of him who drinks of it; For the light breezes, which for ever fleet Around its margin, heap the sand thereon.

1818.

XIII.

FLOURISHING vine, whose kindling clusters

glow

Beneath the autumnal sun, none taste of

thee;

For thou dost shroud a ruin, and below

The rotting bones of dead antiquity.

1818.

XIV.

MARENGHI.

I.

LET those who pine in pride or in revenge,
Or think that ill for ill should be repaid,
Or barter wrong for wrong, until the ex-
change

Ruins the merchants of such thriftless

trade,

Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn
Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn.

2.

A massy tower yet overhangs the town,
A scattered group of ruined dwellings now.

3.

Another scene ere wise Etruria knew

Its second ruin through internal strife, And tyrants through the breach of discord threw

The chain which binds and kills. As death

to life,