Of morning scatters, is the shroud

That wraps the conqueror's clay in death.

Pause here! The far off world at last

Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones, And to the earth its miters cast,

Lies powerless now beneath these stones.

Hark! Comes there from the pyramids,
And from Siberian wastes of snow,

And Europe's hills, a voice that bids.

The world be awed to mourn him?-No!

The only, the perpetual dirge,

That's heard here is the sea-bird's cryThe mournful murmur of the surge,

The clouds' deep voice, the wind's low sigh.

AND THOU ART DEAD.

GEORGE GORDON (LORD) BYRON.

ND thou art dead, as young and fair,
As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!

Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved, and long must love,

Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,
'Tis nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last

As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,

And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;

The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:

And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to day;

Since earthly eye but ill but bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;

The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last:

Extinguish'd, not decay'd;

AND THOU ART DEAD.

As stars that shoot along the sky

Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

329

ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN.

BEN JONSON.

What would I have you do? I'll tell you, kinsman;

Learn to be wise, and practice how to thrive;
That would I have you do; and not to spend
Your coin on every bauble that you fancy,
Or every foolish brain that humors you.

*

I'd have you sober, and contain yourself;
Not that your sail be bigger than your boat;
But moderate your expenses now, (at first,)
As you may keep the same proportion still.
Nor stand so much on your gentility,

Which is an airy, and mere borrowed thing,

From dead men's dust and bones; and none of yours, Except you make or hold it.