When empty fame was toiling merit's meed ;
To modern honour other lays belong;

Profuse of joy and lord of right and wrong,

Honour can game, drink, riot in the stew,

Cut a friend's throat ;-what cannot Honour do?
Ah me-the storm within can Honour still
For Julio's death, whom Honour made me kill?
Or will this lordly Honour tell the way

To pay those debts, which Honour makes me pay?
Or if with pistol and terrific threats

I make some traveller pay my Honour's debts,
A medicine for this wound can Honour give?
Ah, no! my Honour dies to make my Honour live.
But see! young Pleasure, and her train advance,
And joy and laughter wake the inebriate dance;
Around my neck she throws her fair white arms,
I meet her loves, and madden at her charms.
For the gay grape can joys celestial move,
And what so sweet below as woman's love?
With such high transport every moment flies,
I curse Experience that he makes me wise;
For at his frown the dear deliriums flew,
And the changed scene now wears a gloomy hue.
A hideous hag th' enchantress Pleasure seems,
And all her joys appear but feverous dreams.
The vain resolve still broken and still made,
Disease and loathing and remorse invade;
The charm is vanish'd and the bubble's broke,-
A slave to pleasure is a slave to smoke!'

Such lays repentant did the Muse supply; When as the sun was hastening down the sky, In glittering state twice fifty guineas come,His mother's plate antique had raised the sum. Forth leap'd Philedon, of new life possest:'Twas Brookes's all till two,-'twas Hackett's all the rest!

PROGRESS OF VICE

Nemo repente turpissimus

DEEP in the gulf of guilt and woe
Leaps man at once with headlong throw?
Him innate truth and virtue guide,

Whose guards are shame and conscious pride.
In some gay hour vice steals into the breast;
Perchance she wears some softer virtue's vest.
By unperceiv'd degrees she tempts to stray,
Till far from virtue's path she leads the feet away.

Yet still the heart to disenthral
Will memory the past recall,
And fear before the victim's eyes
Bid future woes and dangers rise.

But hark! their charms the voice, the lyre, combine

Gay sparkles in the cup the generous wine

The mazy dance, and frail young beauty fires— And virtue, vanquish'd, scorn'd, with hasty flight retires.

But soon to tempt the pleasures cease,
Yet shame forbids return to peace,

And stern necessity will force

Still to urge on the desperate course.

The drear black paths of vice the wretch must try, Where conscience flashes horror on each eye,

Where hate-where murder scowl-where starts

affright!

Ah! close the scene-ah! close-for dreadful is the sight.

A

DESTRUCTION OF THE BASTILE

I

HEARD'ST thou yon universal cry,

And dost thou linger still on Gallia's shore ?
Go, Tyranny! beneath some barbarous sky
Thy terrors lost and ruin'd power deplore!
What tho' through many a groaning age
Was felt thy keen suspicious rage,

Yet Freedom roused by fierce disdain
Has wildly broke thy triple chain,

And like the storm which earth's deep entrails hide,
At length has burst its way and spread the ruins wide.

IV

In sighs their sickly breath was spent; each_gleam Of hope had ceased the long long day to cheer; Or if delusive, in some flitting dream,

It gave them to their friends and children dearAwaked by lordly insult's sound

To all the doubled horrors round,

Oft shrunk they from oppression's band
While anguish raised the desperate hand

For silent death; or lost the mind's control,
Thro' every burning vein would tides of frenzy roll.

V

But cease, ye pitying bosoms, cease to bleed ! Such scenes no more demand the tear humane;

I see, I see! glad Liberty succeed

With every patriot virtue in her train!

And mark yon peasant's raptured eyes;
Secure he views his harvests rise;
No fetter vile the mind shall know,
And eloquence shall fearless glow.

Yes! Liberty the soul of life shall reign,

Shall throb in every pulse, shall flow thro' every vein!

VI

Shall France alone a despot spurn?

Shall she alone, O Freedom, boast thy care?
Lo, round thy standard Belgia's heroes burn,
Tho' power's blood-stained streamers fire the air,
And wider yet thy influence spread,
Nor e'er recline thy weary head,
Till every land from pole to pole
Shall boast one independent soul!

And still, as erst, let favour'd Britain be
First ever of the first and freest of the free!

INTRODUCTION TO THE TALE OF THE
DARK LADIE

O LEAVE the lily on its stem;
O leave the rose upon the spray;
O leave the elder-bloom, fair maids!
And listen to my lay.

A cypress and a myrtle bough
This morn around my harp you twined,
Because it fashioned mournfully

Its murmurs in the wind.

And now a tale of love and woe,
A woeful tale of love I sing;
Hark, gentle maidens! hark, it sighs
And trembles on the string.

But most, my own dear Genevieve,
It sighs and trembles most for thee!
O come and hear the cruel wrongs,
Befell the Dark Ladie! 1

1 Here followed the stanzas, afterwards published separately under the title 'Love' (see p. 164), and after them came the other three stanzas printed above; the whole forming the introduction to the intended 'Dark Ladie', of which all that exists is subjoined.

And now, once more a tale of woe,
A woeful tale of love I sing;
For thee, my Genevieve, it sighs,
And trembles on the string.

When last I sang the cruel scorn
That crazed this bold and lonely knight,
And how he roam'd the mountain woods,
Nor rested day or night;

I promised thee a sister tale,

Of man's perfidious cruelty;

Come then and hear what cruel wrong
Befell the Dark Ladie.

THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE

A FRAGMENT.

BENEATH yon birch with silver bark,
And boughs so pendulous and fair,
The brook falls scatter'd down the rock:
And all is mossy there!

And there upon the moss she sits,

The Dark Ladie in silent pain;

The heavy tear is in her eye,

And drops and swells again.

Three times she sends her little page
Up the castled mountain's breast,
If he might find the knight that wears
The griffin for his crest.

The sun was sloping down the sky,
And she had lingered there all day,
Counting moments, dreaming fears-
Oh wherefore can he stay?

She hears a rustling o'er the brook,
She sees far off a swinging bough!
'Tis he! 'Tis my betrothed knight!
Lord Falkland, is it thou!'