The brook, once murmuring o'er its pebbly bed,

Now deeply straightly — noiselessly went

on.

Slow turn'd the sluggish wheel beneath its force,

Where clattering mills disturb'd the solitude: Where was the prattling of its former course? Its shelving, sedgy sides y-crown'd with wood?

The willow trunks were fell'd, the names eras'd From one broad shattered pine, which still its station grac'd.

Remnant of all its brethren, there it stood, Braving the storms that swept the cliffs above,

Where once, throughout th' impenetrable wood, Were heard the plainings of the pensive dove. But man had bid th' eternal forests bow

That bloom'd upon the earth-imbedded base Of the strong mountain, and perchance they

now

Upon the billows were the dwelling-place Of their destroyers, and bore terror round

The trembling earth: -ah! lovelier, had they still

Whisper'd unto the breezes with low sound,

And greenly flourish'd on their native hill, And flinging their proud arms in state on high, Spread out beneath the sun their glorious canopy!

ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA

O, CLEOPATRA ! fare thee well,
'We two can meet no more;
This breaking heart alone can tell
The love to thee I bore.

But wear not thou the conqueror's chain
Upon thy race and thee;

And though we ne'er can meet again,
Yet still be true to me:

For I for thee have lost a throne,
To wear the crown of love alone.

Fair daughter of a regal line!

To thraldom bow not tame;
My every wish on earth was thine,
My every hope the same.

And I have mov'd within thy sphere,
And liv'd within thy light;
And oh! thou wert to me so dear,
I breath'd but in thy sight!
A subject world I lost for thee,
For thou wert all my world to me!

Then when the shriekings of the dying
Were heard along the wave.
Soul of my soul! I saw thee flying;
I follow'd thee, to save.

The thunder of the brazen prows
O'er Actium's ocean rung;
Fame's garland faded from my brows,
Her wreath away I flung.
I sought, I saw, I heard but thee:
For what to love was victory?

Note the repetition in the last lines of each stanza. Alfred was more given to these regularities of form than his brother. He also tries his hand at a greater variety of stanzas and arrangements of rhymes.

I WANDER in darkness and sorrow,
Unfriended, and cold, and alone,
As dismally gurgles beside me

The bleak river's desolate moan.
The rise of the volleying thunder

The mountain's lone echoes repeat: The roar of the wind is around me,

The leaves of the year at my feet.

I wander in darkness and sorrow,
Uncheer'd by the moon's placid ray;
Not a friend that I lov'd but is dead,
Not a hope but has faded away!
Oh! when shall I rest in the tomb,
Wrapt about with the chill winding sheet?
For the roar of the wind is around me,
The leaves of the year at my feet.

I heed not the blasts that sweep o'er me,
I blame not the tempests of night;
They are not the foes who have banish'd
The visions of youthful delight:

I hail the wild sound of their raving,
Their merciless presence I greet;
Though the roar of the wind be around me,
The leaves of the year at my feet.

In this waste of existence, for solace,
On whom shall my lone spirit call?
Shall I fly to the friends of my bosom?
My God! I have buried them all!
They are dead, they are gone, they are cold,
My embraces no longer they meet;
Let the roar of the wind be around me,
The leaves of the year at my feet!

Those eyes that glane'd love unto mine,
With motionless slumbers are prest;
Those hearts which once throbb'd but for me,
Are chill as the earth where they rest.
Then around on my wan wither'd form
Let the pitiless hurricanes beat;
Let the roar of the wind be around me,
The leaves of the year at my feet!

Like the voice of the owl in the hall,

Where the song and the banquet have ceas'd, Where the green weeds have mantled the hearth,

Whence arose the proud flame of the feast; So I cry to the storm, whose dark wing Scatters on me the wild-driving sleet

'Let the roar of the wind be around me, The fall of the leaves at my feet!'

THE OLD SWORD

OLD Sword! tho' dim and rusted
Be now thy sheeny blade,
Thy glitt'ring edge encrusted
With cankers Time hath made;

Yet once around thee swell'd the cry
Of triumph's fierce delight,
The shoutings of the victory,
The thunders of the fight!

Tho' age hath past upon thee
With still corroding breath,
Yet once stream'd redly on thee
The purpling tide of death:

What time amid the war of foes
The dastard's cheek grew pale,
As through the feudal field arose
The ringing of the mail.

Old Sword! what arm hath wielded
Thy richly gleaming brand,

'Mid lordly forms who shielded
The maidens of their land?

And who hath clov'n his foes in wrath
With thy puissant fire,

And scatter'd in his perilous path
The victims of his ire?

Old Sword! whose fingers clasp'd thee Around thy carved hilt?

And with that hand which grasp'd thee
What heroes' blood was spilt;

When fearlessly, with open hearts,
And lance to lance oppos'd,
Beneath the shade of barbed darts
The dark-ey'd warriors clos'd?

Old Sword! I would not burnish
Thy venerable rust,

Nor sweep away the tarnish
Of darkness and of dust!

Lie there, in slow and still decay,
Unfam'd in olden rhyme,

The relic of a former day,

A wreck of ancient time!

'WE MEET NO MORE'

The present Lord Tennyson agrees with me that this is incorrectly assigned to Alfred.

WE meet no more- the die is cast,
The chain is broke that tied us,

ray;

And the tall-waving palms of my own native wildwood

In the blue haze of distance are melting away.

I see thee, Bassorah! in splendour retiring, Where thy waves and thy walls in their ma jesty meet;

I see the bright glory thy pinnacles firing, And the broad vassal river that rolls at thy feet.

I see thee but faintly-thy tall towers aro beaming

On the dusky horizon so far and so blue; And minaret and mosque in the distance are gleaming,

While the coast of the stranger expands on my view.

I see thee no more: for the deep waves havo parted

The land of my birth from her desolate son; And I am gone from thee, though half broken

hearted,

To wander thro' climes where thy name is unknown.

Farewell to my harp, which I hung in my anguish

On the lonely palmetto that nods to the gale; For its sweet-breathing tones in forgetfulness languish,

And around it the ivy shall weave a green veil.

Dark Valley! still the same art thou,
Unchang'd thy mountain's cloudy brow;
Still from yon cliffs, that part asunder,
Falls down the torrent's echoing thunder;
Still from this mound of reeds and rushes
With bubbling sound the fountain gushes;
Thence, winding thro' the whisp'ring ranks
Of sedges on the willowy banks,
Still brawling, chafes the rugged stones
That strew this dismal Vale of Bones.

Unchang'd art thou! no storm hath rent
Thy rude and rocky battlement;
Thy rioting mountains sternly pil'd,
The screen of nature, wide and wild:
But who were they, whose bones bestrew
The heather, cold with midnight dew,
Upon whose slowly-rotting clay
The raven long hath ceas'd to prey,
But, mould'ring in the moon-light air,

Their wan, white skulls show bleak and bare ?
And, aye, the dreary night-breeze moans

Above them in this Vale of Bones!

I knew them all - a gallant band, The glory of their native land, And on each lordly brow elate Sate valour and contempt of fate, Fierceness of youth, and scorn of foe, And pride to render blow for blow. In the strong war's tumultuous crash.

How darkly did their keen eyes flash!
How fearlessly each arm was rais'd!
How dazzlingly each broad-sword blaz'd!
Though now the dreary night-breeze moans
Above them in this Vale of Bones.

What lapse of time shall sweep away
The memory of that gallant day,
When on to battle proudly going,
Your plumage to the wild winds blowing,
Your tartans far behind ye flowing,

Your pennons rais'd, your clarions sounding,
Fiercely your steeds beneath ye bounding,
Ye mix'd the strife of warring foes

In fiery shock and deadly close?

What stampings in the madd'ning strife,
What thrusts, what stabs, with brand and knife,
What desp'rate strokes for death or life,
Were there! What cries, what thrilling groans,
Re-echo'd thro' the Vale of Bones!

Thou peaceful Vale, whose mountains lonely,
Sound to the torrent's chiding only,
Or wild-goat's cry from rocky ledge,
Or bull-frog from the rustling sedge,
Or eagle from her airy cairn,
Or screaming of the startled hern-
How did thy million echoes waken
Amid thy caverns deeply shaken!
How with the red dew o'er thee rain'd
Thine emerald turf was darkly stain'd!
How did each innocent flower, that sprung

Thy greenly-tangl'd glades among,
Blush with the big and purple drops
That dribbled from the leafy copse!
I pac'd the valley, when the yell
Of triumph's voice had ceas'd to swell:
When battle's brazen throat no more
Rais'd its annihilating roar.
There lay ye on each other pil'd,
Your brows with noble dust defil'd;1
There, by the loudly-gushing water,
Lay man and horse in mingled slaughter.
Then wept I not, thrice gallant band;
For though no more each dauntless hand
The thunder of the combat hurl'd,
Yet still with pride your lips were curl'd;
And e'en in death's o'erwhelming shade
Your fingers linger'd round the blade!
I deem'd, when gazing proudly there
Upon the fix'd and haughty air
That mark'd each warrior's bloodless face,
Ye would not change the narrow space
Which each cold form of breathless clay
Then cover'd, as on earth ye lay,
For realms, for sceptres, or for thrones-
I dream'd not on this Vale of Bones!

But years have thrown their veil between, And alter'd is that lonely scene; And dreadful emblems of thy might, Stern Dissolution! meet my sight: The eyeless socket, dark and dull, The hideous grinning of the skull, Are sights which Memory disowns, Thou melancholy Vale of Bones!

1 'Non indecoro pulvere sordidos.' — HOR.

Were not the pearls it fans more clear Than those which grace the valved shell; Thy foot more airy than the deer,

When startled from his lonely dell

Were not thy bosom's stainless whiteness,
Where angel loves their vigils keep,
More heavenly than the dazzling brightness
Of the cold crescent on the deep-

Were not thine eye a star might grace
Yon sapphire concave beaming clear,
Or fill the vanish'd Pleiad's place,

And shine for aye as brightly there

Had not thy locks the golden glow
That robes the gay and early east,
Thus falling in luxuriant flow

Around thy fair but faithless breast:

I might have deem'd that thou wert she
Of the Cumaæan cave, who wrote
Each fate-involving mystery,

Upon the feathery leaves that float,
Borne thro' the boundless waste of air,
Wherever chance might drive along.
But she was wrinkled - thou art fair:

And she was old - but thou art young.

Her years were as the sands that strew The fretted ocean-beach; but thou Triumphant in that eye of blue,

Beneath thy smoothly-marble brow;

Exulting in thy form thus moulded,

By nature's tenderest touch design'd; Proud of the fetters thou hast folded Around this fond deluded mind

Deceivest still with practis'd look,
With fickle vow, and well-feign'd sigh.
I tell thee, that I will not brook
Reiterated perjury!

1 Ulloa says, that the blossom of the West-Indian Anana is of so elegant a crimson as even to dazzle the eye, and that the fragrancy of the fruit discovers the

LAND of bright eye and lofty brow!
Whose every gale is balmy breath
Of incense from some sunny flower,
Which on tall hill or valley low,

In clustering maze or circling wreath,
Sheds perfume; or in blooming bower
Of Schiraz or of Ispahan,

In bower untrod by foot of man,
Clasps round the green and fragrant stem
Of lotos, fair and fresh and blue,
And crowns it with a diadem
Of blossoms, ever young and new;
Oh! lives there yet within thy soul

Ought of the fire of him who led
Thy troops, and bade thy thunder roll
O'er lone Assyria's crownless head?
I tell thee, had that conqueror red

From Thymbria's plain beheld thy fall When stormy Macedonia swept

Thine honours from thee one and all, He would have wail'd, he would have wept, That thy proud spirit should have bow'd To Alexander, doubly proud. Oh! Iran Iran! had he known The downfall of his mighty throne, Or had he seen that fatal night,

When the young king of Macedon
In madness led his veterans on,
And Thais held the funeral light,
Around that noble pile which rose

Irradiant with the pomp of gold,
In high Persepolis of old,

Encompass'd with its frenzied foes;
He would have groan'd, he would have spread
The dust upon his laurell'd head,

To view the setting of that star,
Which beam'd so gorgeously and far
O'er Anatolia, and the fane

Of Belus, and Caïster's plain,

And Sardis, and the glittering sands Of bright Pactolus, and the lands Where Croesus held his rich domain: On fair Diarbeck's land of spice,2 Adiabene's plains of rice,

Where down th' Euphrates, swift and strong,

The shield-like kuphars bound along; 1
And sad Cunaxa's field, where, mixing
With host to adverse host oppos'd,
'Mid clashing shield and spear transfixing,
The rival brothers sternly clos'd.
And further east, where, broadly roll'd,
Old Indus pours his stream of gold;

And there, where tumbling deep and hoarse,
Blue Ganga leaves her vaccine source; 2
Loveliest of all the lovely streams
That meet immortal Titan's beams,
And smile upon their fruitful way
Beneath his golden orient ray:
And southward to Cilicia's shore,
Where Cydnus meets the billows' roar,
And where the Syrian gates divide
The meeting realms on either side; 3
E'en to the land of Nile, whose crops

Bloom rich beneath his bounteous swell,
To hot Syene's wondrous well,
Nigh to the long-liv'd Ethiops.
And northward far to Trebizonde,
Renown'd for kings of chivalry,
Near where old Hyssus, from the strand,
Disgorges in the Euxine sea-

The Euxine, falsely nam'd, which whelms
The mariner in the heaving tide,
To high Sinope's distant realms,
Whence cynics rail'd at human pride.

EGYPT

'Egypt's palmy groves, Her grots, and sepulchres of kings.'

MOORE'S Lalla Rookh.

THE Sombre pencil of the dim-grey dawn
Draws a faint sketch of Egypt to mine eye,
As yet uncolour'd by the brilliant morn,
And her gay orb careering up the sky.

And see! at last he comes in radiant pride,
Life in his eye, and glory in his ray;
No veiling mists his growing splendour hide,
And hang their gloom around his golden way.

The flowery region brightens in his smile,

Her lap of blossoms freights the passing gale, That robs the odours of each balmy isle, Each fragrant field and aromatic vale.

But the first glitter of his rising beam

Falls on the broad-bas'd pyramids sublime, As proud to show us with his earliest gleam, Those vast and hoary enemies of time.

Pauses, and scans them with astonish'd eye,
As unfamiliar with their aged pile.

Awful, august, magnificent, they tower
Amid the waste of shifting sands around;
The lapse of year and month and day and hour,
Alike unfelt, perform th' unwearied round.

How often hath yon day-god's burning light,
From the clear sapphire of his stainless hea

ven,

Bath'd their high peaks in noontide brilliance bright,

Gilded at morn, and purpled them at even!*

THE DRUID'S PROPHECIES &

Perhaps suggested by Cowper's 'Boadicea,' but longer and more elaborate, and here and there hardly inferior to that poem.

MONA! with flame thine oaks are streaming,
Those sacred oaks we rear'd on high:
Lo! Mona, Lo! the swords are gleaming
Adown thine hills confusedly.

Hark! Mona, Hark! the chargers' neighing!
The clang of arms and helmets bright!
The crash of steel, the dreadful braying
Of trumpets thro' the madd'ning fight!

Exalt your torches, raise your voices;

Your thread is spun- your day is brief;
Yea! Howl for sorrow! Rome rejoices,
But Mona-Mona bends in grief!

But woe to Rome, though now she raises
Yon eagles of her haughty power;
Though now her sun of conquest blazes,
Yet soon shall come her darkening hour!

Woe, woe to him who sits in glory,
Enthroned on thine hills of pride!
Can he not see the poignard gory,
With his best heart's-blood deeply dyed?

Ah! what avails his gilded palace,
Whose wings the seven-hill'd town enfold ?6
The costly bath, the chrystal chalice?

The pomp of gems- the glare of gold?

See where, by heartless anguish driven,
Crownless he creeps 'mid circling thorns;7
Around him flash the bolts of heaven,

And angry earth before him yawns.8

veste ferali, crinibus dejectis, faces præferebant. Druidque circum, preces diras, sublatis ad cœlum manibus, fundentes,' etc. - TACIT. Annal. xiv. c. 30.

Pliny says, that the golden palace of Nero extended all round the city.

Ut ad diverticulum ventum est, dimissis equis inter fruticeta ac vepres, per arundineti semitam ægre, nec nisi strata sub pedibus veste, ad adversum villa parietem evasit.'-SUETON. Vit. Cæsar.

'Statimque tremore terræ, et fulgure adverso pavefactus, audiit ex proximis castris clamorem,' etc. — Ibid.