"O Lachrymarum fons, tenero sacros
Ducentium ortus ex animo: quater
Felix! in imo qui scatentem

Pectore te, pia Nympha, sensit."

I.

-Gray's Poemata.

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes

away,

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;

'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, e'er youth itself be past.

II.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness

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Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess: The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in

vain

The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again.

III.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself

comes down;

It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its

own;

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That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our

tears,

And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice

appears.

IV.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,

Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;

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'Tis but as ivy leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath.

V.

Oh could I feel as I have felt,-or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd scene:

As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,

So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me.

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SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY

(From Hebrew Melodies, 1815)

I.

She walks in beauty, like the night

Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

5 Thus mellow'd to that tender light

Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

II.

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One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,

Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear, their dwelling-place.

III.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

15 The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

SONNET ON CHILLON

(Introduction to The Prisoner of Chillon)
(1816)

Eternal spirit of the chainless mind!
Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art,
For there thy habitation is the heart-
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;
And when thy sons to fetters are consign'd-
To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom
Their country conquers with their martyrdom,
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind.
Chillon thy prison is a holy place,

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And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod, 10 Until his very steps have left a trace

Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod,

By Bonnivard!-May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God.

CHILDE HAROLD'S PILGRIMAGE

(1816)

CANTO III.

III.

In my youth's summer I did sing of One,
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
Again I seize the theme, then but begun,
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind
Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find

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The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind, O'er which all heavily the journeying years Plod the last sands of life,-where not a flower appears.

VIII.

Something too much of this:-but now 'tis past,
And the spell closes with its silent seal.
Long absent Harold re-appears at last;

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He of the breast which fain no more would feel, Wrung with the wounds which kill not, but ne'er

heal;

Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him In soul and aspect as in age: years steal Fire from the mind as vigour from the limb; And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

IX.

His had been quaff'd too quickly, and he found
The dregs were wormwood; but he fill'd again,
And from a purer fount, on holier ground,
And deem'd its spring perpetual; but in vain!
Still round him clung invisibly a chain

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Which gall'd forever, fettering though unseen, And heavy though it clank'd not; worn with pain, Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen, Entering with every step he took through many a

scene.

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XII.

But soon he knew himself the most unfit

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Of men to herd with Man; with whom he held
Little in common; untaught to submit

His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell'd

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In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompell'd,
He would not yield dominion of his mind
To spirits against whom his own rebell'd;
Proud though in desolation; which could find
A life within itself, to breathe without mankind.

XIII.

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends; Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home; 110 Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends, He had the passion and the power to roam; The desert, forest, cavern, breaker's foam, Were unto him companionship; they spake A mutual language, clearer than the tome Of his land's tongue, which he would oft forsake For Nature's pages glass'd by sunbeams on the lake.

XIV.

Like the Chaldean, he could watch the stars,

Till he had peopled them with beings bright

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As their own beams; and earth, and earth-born jars,
And human frailties, were forgotten quite:
Could he have kept his spirit to that flight