Had stamp'd her image in me, and even so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part,
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and
a show.
19.

I can repeople with the past-and of
The present there is still for eye and thought,
And meditation chasten'd down, enough;
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
And of the happiest moments which were
wrought

Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught:

There are some feelings Time cannot benumb,

Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind, But feel the shock renew'd, nor can efface The blight and blackening which it leaves behind,

Which out of things familiar, undesign'd, When least we deem of such, calls up to view The spectres whom no exorcism can bind, The cold-the changed-perchance the dead

-anew,

The mourn'd, the loved, the lost-too many! -yet how few!

Wearied with the contemplation of scenes so humiliating to the eye of man, the Poet and the Pilgrim, for they are now confessedly the same, rejoices to escape into the pure solitude of nature, and to sooth his mind with the survey of less transitory beauties. At Arqua, the little hamlet where Petrarch spent the last years of his life, and where his house, chair, &c. are still shewn to travellers, exactly as the relics of Shakspeare are at Stratford-upon-Avon, Byron is filled with admiration of the modest retreat selected by this illustrious poet, and enters fully, for a moment, into the quiet and self-subdued spirit of one with whom, in general, he appears to have very little in common.

32.

And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
Is one of that compl. xion which seems made
For those who their mortality have felt,
And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd
In the deep umbrage of a green hill's shade,
Which shows a distant prospect far away
Of busy cities, now in vain display'd,
For they can lure no further; and the ray
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday,

33.

Developing the mountains, leaves, and

flowers,

And shining in the brawling brook, where-by,
Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours
With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
Idlesse it seem, hath its morality.
If from society we learn to live,
'Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
It hath no flatterers; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone-man with his God
must strive.

The description of an Italian even ing on the banks of the Bretna, is one of the most beautiful passages in the poem. The poetry of Nature, which he has learned from Wordsworth, seems to be heightened and improved in his hands, by the unseen influence of the more glorious scenes and climates to which he has transferred it.

"A single star is at her side, and reigns With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill, As Day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaim'd her order :-gently flows The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose, Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows,

29.

nities of petty tyrants, is well fitted to call up that mist of morbid contempt through which Lord Byron delights to look upon the frail pageants of external grandeur.

At Florence he seems to have thought of little except the statues in the gallery, and the tombs in the church of Santa Croce. This, we think, is the first time that he has ever come directly upon the subject of art; and although he is careful to tell us how much he prefers a single green valley, or roaring cataract, and all the masterpieces of the chisel and the pencil, still his soul is so conversant with ideal creations of loveliness, majesty, and terror, that he speaks of the Venus, the Apollo, and the Laocoon, in a style which our readers will easily acknowledge to be far superior to any thing which the admiration of art had before embodied in English Poetry.

There is something to us inexpressibly touching in the transition from this splendid enthusiasm to the mournful shades of the Florentine cemetry. Never was more deep mean

afar,

eighth of this stanza.

The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp,

The old man's clench; the long envenomed chain

Rivets the living links,-the enormous asp
Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on
gasp.
:61.

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
The God of life, and poesy, and light-
The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow
All radiant from his triumph in the fight;
The shaft hath just been shot-the arrow
bright

With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might,
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.
162.

But in his delicate form-a dream of Love,
Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast
Long'd for a deathless lover from above,
And madden'd in that vision--are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever bless'd
The mind with in its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly guest

A ray of immortality-and stood,
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god!
From the smiling beauties of the
Vale of Arno, he rushes to breathe
again, an atmosphere more congenial
to his soul, among the rugged defiles
of Thrasimene the imperishable mo-
nument of Carthagenian skill and Ro-
man despair. It is well known that
an earthquake, which shook all Italy,
occurred during the battle, and was
unfelt by any of the combatants.

Which reigns when mountains tremble, and the birds

Plunge in the clouds for refuge, and withdraw

From their down-toppling nests; and bel, lowing herds

Stumble o'er heaving plains, and man's dread hath no words.

65.

Far other scene is Thrasimene now;
Her lake a sheet of silver, and her plain
Rent by no ravage save the gentle plough;
Her aged trees rise thick as once the slain
Lay where their roots are; but a brook hath
ta'en-

A little rill of scanty stream and bed-
A name of blood from that day's sanguine
rain;

And Sanguinetto tells ye where the dead Made the earth wet, and turn'd the unwilling waters red.

Venice, Lombardy, and Tuscany, rich as they are in relics of fallen grandeur and inimitable art, and still more so in scenes where nature dis

plays herself both in beauty and sublimity, are, after all, only the avenues to the main attraction of the poet and the poem. Even Greece, with all her natural graces, and all her heroic recollections, wants that majestic charm of unapproached greatness, which binds the heart of every profound thinker to the contemplation of the skeleton of Rome, It was here that the nature of man arrayed itself in greatness so terrific, that it almost merited the name of disguise. It was here that imagination and passion, disdaining all individual hopes, and feelings, and exactions, concentrated themselves with unswerving pertinacity in the idea of country.

A Roman thought himself great and noble, not because he was himself, not for any thing that himself had done or could do, but simply because his birth and home were in the eternal city, All other men are vain. The Roman only was proud. He looked upon himself as a being animated with the inspirations of a nobler nature than is given to other men. Even the Greek, with all his philosophy, poetry, art, and eloquence, was regarded as an ingenious animal of a lower species, Nay, the Greeks, rich as their accomfedged their inferiority, whenever they plishments were, seem to have acknowwere brought into actual contact either with the bodies or the spirits of these "Men of Iron."

• We had lately sent to us a translation of an Elegy, by William Augustus Schle,

Whose agonies are evils of a day

Alas! the lofty city! and alas!

79.

The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe; An empty urn within her withered hands, Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago; The Scipio's tomb contains no ashes now; The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness? Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress! 80.

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire,

Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride; She saw her glories star by star expire,

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride, Where the car climb'd the capitol; far and wide

Temple and tower went down, nor left a site:

Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void, O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And say, here was, or is,' where all is doubly night?

gel, from which our correspondent supposes that Lord Byron has borrowed not a little of the spirit, and even of the expressions, of

the Fourth Canto. We cannot, we must confess, observe any thing more than such coincidences, as might very well be expected from two great poets contemplating the same scene. The opening of the German poem appears to us to be very striking; but the whole is pitched in an elegiac key. Lord Byron handles the same topics with the deeper power of a tragedian.

Trust not the smiling welcome Rome can give,
With her green fields, and her unspotted sky;
Parthenope hath taught thee how to live,
Let Rome, imperial Rome, now teach to die.
"Tis true, the land is fair as land may be,
One radiant canopy of azure lies
O'er the seven hills far downward to the sea,
And upward where yon Sabine heights arise.
Yet sorrowful and sad, I wend my way
Through this long ruined labyrinth, alone
Each echo whispers of the elder day,
I see a monument in every stone.

When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away!
Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
And Livy's pictur'd page!-but these shall
be

Her resurrection; all beside-decay.
Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see
That brightness in her eye she bore when
Rome was free!

wild teat,

Scorch'd by the Roman Jove's etherial dart, And thy limbs black with lightning-dost thou yet

Guard thine immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? 89.

Thou dost ;-but all thy foster-babes are dead

The men of iron; and the world hath rear'd
Cities from out their sepulchres: men bled
In imitation of the things they fear'd,
And fought and conquer'd, and the same
course steer'd,

At apish distance; but as yet none have,
Nor could, the same supremacy have near'd,
Save one vain man, who is not in the grave,
But, vanquish'd hy himself, to his own
slaves a slave-
90.

The fool of false dominion-and a kind
Of bastard Cæsar, following him of old
With steps unequal; for the Roman's mind
Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould,
With passions fiercer, yet a judgment cold,
And an immortal instinct which redeem'd
The frailties of a heart so soft, yet bold,
Alcides with the distaff now he seem'd
At Cleopatra's feet,-and now himself he
beam'd,
91.

And came-and saw-and conquer'd! But the man

Who would have tamed his eagles down to flee,
Like a train'd falcon, in the Gallic van,
Which he, in sooth, long led to victory,
With a deaf heart which never seem'd to be
A listener to itself, was strangely fram'd;
With but one weakest weakness-vanity,
Coquettish in ambition-still he aim'd
At what? can he avouch-or answer what
he claim'd?

92.

And would be all or nothing-nor could wait

For the sure grave to level him; few years Had fix'd him with the Cæsars in his fate, On whom we tread: For this the conqueror

rears

The arch of triumph! and for this the tears And blood of earth flow on as they have flowed, An universal deluge, which appears

Egeria! sweet creation of some heart
Which found no mortal resting-place so fair
As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
Or wert, a young Aurora of the air,
The nympholepsy of some fond despair;
Or, it might be, a beauty of the earth,
Who found a more than common votary there
Too much adoring; whatsoe'er thy birth, J
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly
bodied forth.

116.

The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkle
With thine Elysian water-drops; the face
Of thy cave-guarded spring, with years un-
wrinkled,
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place,
Whose green wild margin now no more erase
Art's works; nor must the delicate waters
sleep,

Prisoned in marble, bubbling from the base
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap
The rill runs o'er, and round, fern, flowers,
and ivy, creep,
117.

Fantastically tangled; the green hills Are clothed with early blossoms, through the grass

The quick-eyed lizard rustles, and the bills Of summer-birds sing welcome as ye pass; Flowers fresh in hue, and many in their class, Implore the pausing step, and with their dyes, Dance in the soft breeze in a fairy mass; The sweetness of the violet's deep blue eyes, Kiss'd by the breath of heaven, seems coloured by its skies.