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While brooding in thy prisoned rage?
But one,
"The world as mine!"
Unless, like him of Babylon,
All sense is with thy scepter gone,
Life will not long confine
That spirit poured so widely forth,
So long obeyed, so little worth!

Or, like the thief of fire from heaven,
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
Foredoomed by God, by man accurst,
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very fiend's arch mock:

He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!

NAPOLEON.

FROM "CHILDE HAROLD."

LORD BYRON.

Yet well thy soul hath brooked the turning
tide

With that untaught innate philosophy,
Which, be it wisdom, coldness, or deep pride,
Is gall and wormwood to an enemy.
When the whole host of hatred stood hard by,
To watch and mock thee shrinking, thou hast
smiled

With a sedate and all-enduring eye,

When Fortune fled her spoiled and favorite child,

He stood unbowed beneath the ills upon him piled.

Sager than in thy fortunes; for in them
Ambition steeled thee on too far to show
That just habitual scorn which could contemn
Men and their thoughts; 't was wise to feel,
not so

To wear it ever on thy lip and brow,

And spurn the instruments thou wert to use Till they were turned unto thine overthrow; "T is but a worthless world to win or lose ;

THERE Sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men, So hath it proved to thee, and all such lot who
Whose spirit antithetically mixed

One moment of the mightiest, and again
On little objects with like firmness fixed,
Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt,
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;
For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st
Even now to reassume the imperial mien,
And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the
scene!

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou !
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than

now

That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,
Who wooed thee once, thy vassal, and became
The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert
A god unto thyself: nor less the same
To the astounded kingdoms all inert,

Who deemed thee for a time whate'er thou didst
assert.

O more or less than man - in high or low,
Battling with nations, flying from the field;
Now making monarchs' necks thy footstool,

now

More than thy meanest soldier taught to yield: An empire thou couldst crush, command, rebuild,

choose.

If, like a tower upon a headlong rock,
Thou hadst been made to stand or fall alone,
Such scorn of man had helped to brave the
shock;

But men's thoughts were the steps which paved
thy throne,

Their admiration thy best weapon shone ;
The part of Philip's son was thine, not then
(Unless aside thy purple had been thrown)
Like stern Diogenes to mock at men;
For sceptered cynics earth were far too wide a den.

But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell,
And there hath been thy bane; there is a fire
And motion of the soul which will not dwell
In its own narrow being, but aspire
Beyond the fitting medium of desire;
And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore,
Preys upon high adventure, nor can tire
Of aught but rest; a fever at the core,
Fatal to him who bears, to all who ever bore.

This makes the madmen who have made men mad

By their contagion! Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, And are themselves the fools to those they fool; Envied, yet how unenviable! what stings Are theirs! One breast laid open were a school Nor learn that tempted Fate will leave the lofti- Which would unteach mankind the lust to shine

But govern not thy pettiest passion, nor
However deeply in men's spirits skilled,
Look through thine own, nor curb the lust of

war,

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And gave their crowns, as playthings, to thine Child of Ambition's martyr! Life had been

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That narrative of fame.

"T is true," they'll say, "his gorgeous throne

France bled to raise ;

But he was all our own!"

"Mother, say something in his praise,
O, speak of him always!"

"I saw him pass, --his was a host

Countless beyond your young imaginings,

My children, he could boast

A train of conquered kings!

And when he came this road,

"T was on my bridal day,

He wore, for near to him I stood,

Cocked hat and surcoat gray.

I blushed; he said, 'Be of good cheer!
Courage, my dear !'

That was his very word."

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To see the French war-steamers speeding over
When the fog cleared away.

From its one heart a nation wailed, for well the startled sense divined

A greater power had fled away than aught that now remained behind.

Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,
Their cannon, through the night,
Holding their breath, had watched in grim de- The scathed and haggard face, and look so bright
with sword-like thought

fiance

The sea-coast opposite;

Had been to many a million hearts the all between themselves and naught;

And now they roared, at drum-beat, from their And so they stood aghast and pale, as if they

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MIRABEAU.

NoT oft before has peopled earth sent up so deep and wide a groan,

As when the word swept over France, "The life

of Mirabeau is flown!"

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No more I hear a nation's shout around the In every spot beneath the smiling sun,

hero's tread prevailing, Sees where the springs of living waters lie; No more I hear above his tomb a nation's fierce Unseen awhile they sleep, till, touched by thee, bewildered wailing; Bright healthful waves flow forth to each glad wanderer free.

I stand amid the silent night, and think of man and all his woe

With fear and pity, grief and awe, when I remember Mirabeau.

JOHN WILSON.

FELICIA HEMANS.

ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH,

BY R. B. HAYDON.

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WORDSWORTH upon Helvellyn! Let the cloud
Ebb audibly along the mountain-wind,
Then break against the rock, and show behind
The lowland valleys floating up to crowd
The sense with beauty. He, with forehead bowed
And humble-lidded eyes, as one inclined
Before the sovran thought of his own mind,
And very meek with inspirations proud,
Takes here his rightful place as poet-priest
By the high-altar, singing prayer and prayer
To the higher Heavens. A noble vision free,
Our Haydon's hand hath flung out from the
mist!

No portrait this, with Academic air,
This is the poet and his poetry.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

ROUSSEAU AND COWPER.

FROM "THE RELIGION OF TASTE."

ROUSSEAU Could weep; yes, with a heart of stone,
The impious sophist could recline beside
The pure and peaceful lake, and muse alone
On all its loveliness at eventide —
On its small running waves, in purple dyed,
Beneath bright clouds on all the glowing sky,
On the white sails that o'er its bosom glide,
And on surrounding mountains wild and high,
Till tears unbidden gushed from his enchanted eye.

But his were not the tears of feeling fine
Of grief or love; at fancy's flash they flowed,
Like burning drops from some proud lonely pine
By lightning fired; his heart with passion glowed
Till it consumed his life, and yet he showed
A chilling coldness both to friend and foe;
As Etna, with its center an abode

Of wasting fire, chills with the icy snow
Of all its desert brow the living world below.

Was he but justly wretched from his crimes?
Then why was Cowper's anguish oft as keen,
With all the Heaven-born virtue that sublimes
Genius and feeling, and to things unseen
Lifts the pure heart through clouds, that roll
between

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