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If still she loves thee, hoard that gem, 'Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem!

14.

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile,
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand,
In loitering mood, upon the sand,
That Earth is now as free!

That Corinth's pedagogue hath now
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.

15.

Thou Timour! in his captive's cage 5 What thoughts will there be thine, While brooding in thy prison'd rage? But one-" The world was mine :" Unless, like he of Babylon,

All sense is with thy sceptre gone,

Life will not long confine

That spirit pour'd so widely forth— So long obey'd-so little worth!

16.

Or like the thief of fire from heaven,6
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!

Foredoom'd by God-by man accurst,
And that last act, though not thy worst,
Fiend's arch mock;7

The very

He in his fall preserved his pride,

And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!

NOTES.

NOTE I.

The rapture of the strife—

Page 134, line 16.

Certaminis gaudia, the expression of Attila in his harangue to his army, previous to the battle of Chalons, given in Cassiodorus.

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The cage of Bajazet, by order of Tamerlane.

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Shakespeare.

"To lip a wanton, and suppose her chaste."

THE

LAMENT OF TASSO.

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