Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

Thanks for that lesson-it will teach
To after warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preached before.
That spell upon the minds of men
Breaks, never to unite again,

That led them to adore

Those Pagod things of sabre sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.

The triumph, and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife—
The earthquake voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;

The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seemed made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife-

All quelled !—Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

The Desolator desolate!

The Victor overthrown!

The arbiter of others' fate

A suppliant for his own!

Is it some yet imperial hope,

That with such change can calmly cope?

Or dread of death alone?

To die a prince—or live a slave—
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

He who of old would rend the oak, Dreamed not of the rebound; Chained by the trunk he vainly broke— Alone-how looked he round?

Thou, in the sternness of thy strength,
An equal deed hast done at length,
And darker fate hast found;
He fell, the forest prowler's prey :
But thou must eat thy heart away!

The Roman, when his burning heart,
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home—

He dared depart in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!

His only glory was that hour

Of self-upheld abandoned power.

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,

Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;

A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:

Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.

But thou-from thy reluctant hand
The thunderbolt is wrung-

Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;

All Evil Spirit as thou art,

It is enough to grieve the heart

To see thine own unstrung;

To think that God's fair world hath been

The footstool of a thing so mean!

And earth hath spilt her blood for him,

Who thus can hoard his own!

And Monarchs bowed the trembling limb,
And thanked him for a throne !

Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear
In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!

Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,
Nor written thus in vain-
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Or deepen every stain :

If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?

Weighed in the balance, hero dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;

Thy scales, Mortality! are just

To all that pass away:

But yet methought the living great

Some higher sparks should animate,

To dazzle and dismay;

Nor deemed Contempt could thus make mirth Of these, the Conquerors of the earth.

And she, proud Austria's mournful flower,

Thy still imperial bride;

How bears her breast the torturing hour?

Still clings she to thy side?

Must she, too, bend,-must she, too, share,
Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless Homicide?

If still she loves thee, hoard that gem; 'Tis worth thy vanished diadem !

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,

And gaze upon the sea:

That element may meet thy smile-
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand,
In loitering mood upon the sand,
That Earth is now as free!

That Corinth's pedagogue hath now,
Transferred his by-word to thy brow.

Thou Timour! in his captive's cage—
What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prisoned rage?
But one-" The world was mine!"
Unless, like he of Babylon,
All sense is with thy sceptre 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!

There was a day-there was an hour,
While earth was Gaul's-Gaul thine-
When that immeasurable power,

Unsated, to resign,

Had been an act of purer fame,

Than gathers round Marengo's name,
And gilded thy decline,

Through the long twilight of all time,
Despite some passing clouds of crime.

But thou, forsooth, must be a king,
And don the purple vest,

As if that foolish robe could wring
Remembrance from thy breast.
Where is the faded garment? where
The gewgaws thou wert fond to wear,
The star-the string-the crest ?
Vain froward child of empire! say,
Are all thy playthings snatched away?

Where may the wearied eye repose,
When gazing on the Great,
Where neither guilty glory glows,
Nor despicable state?

Yes-one-the first-the last-the best-
The Cincinnatus of the West,

Whom envy dared not hate,

Bequeath the name of Washington,

To make man blush there was but one!

LORD BYRON.

Hassan's Desolated Palace.
THE steed is vanished from the stall;

No serf is seen in Hassan's hall;

The lonely Spider's thin grey pall
Waves slowly widening o'er the wall;
The Bat builds in his Haram bower;
And in the fortress of his power

The Owl usurps the beacon tower.

The wild-dog howls o'er the fountain's brim,

With baffled thirst and famine grim:

For the stream has shrunk from its marble bed,

Where the weeds and the desolate dust are spread.

'Twas sweet of yore to see it play

And chase the sultriness of day,
As, springing high, the silver dew

In whirls fantastically flew,