Oft as thy snowy column grows,
Then breaks and falls away,
I trace how mighty realms thus rose,
Thus tumbled to decay.

Awhile like thee the hero burns,

And smokes and fumes around, And then, like thee, to ashes turns. And mingles with the ground.

Life's but a leaf adroitly rolled,

And time's the wasting breath, That late or early, we behold, Gives all to dusty death. From beggar's frieze to monarch's robe,

One common doom is passed; Sweet Nature's works, the swelling globe,

Must all burn out at last.

And what is he who smokes thee now?

A little moving heap,
That soon like thee to fate must bow,
With thee in dust must sleep.

But though thy ashes downward go,
Thy essence rolls on high;
Thus, when my body must lie low,
My soul shall cleave the sky.

FROM THE "ODE ON SHAKESPEARE."

WHO now shall grace the glowing throne,

Where, all unrivalled, all alone, Bold Shakespeare sat, and looked creation through,

The minstrel monarch of the worlds he drew?

That throne is cold-that lyre in death unstrung

On whose proud note delighted Wonder hung.

Yet old Oblivion, as in wrath he sweeps,

One spot shall spare-the grave where Shakespeare sleeps.

Rulers and ruled in common gloom may lie,

But Nature's laureate bards shall never die.

Art's chiselled boast and Glory's trophied shore

Must live in numbers, or can live no

more.

While sculptured Jove some nameless waste may claim, [fame; Still rolls the Olympic car in Pindar's Troy's doubtful walls in ashes passed away,

Yet frown on Greece in Homer's deathless lay;

Rome, slowly sinking in her crumbling fanes,

Stands all immortal in her Maro's strains;

So, too, yon giant empress of the isles, On whose broad sway the sun forever smiles,

To Time's unsparing rage one day must bend,

And all her triumphs in her Shakespeare end!

O thou! to whose creative power We dedicate the festal hour, While Grace and Goodness round the altar stand, Learning's anointed train, and Beauty's rose-lipped band Realms yet unborn, in accents now unknown,

Thy song shall learn, and bless it for their own. [roves, Deep in the West as Independence His banners planting round the land he loves,

Where Nature sleeps in Eden's infant grace,

In Time's full hour shall spring a glorious race,

Thy name, thy verse, thy language, shall they bear, And deck for thee the vaulted temple there.

Our Roman-hearted fathers broke Thy parent empire's galling yoke; But thou, harmonious master of the mind,

Around their sons a gentler chain shalt bind;

more in thee shall Albion's sceptre wave,

Once

And

what her monarch lost, her monarch-bard shall save.

So weak they seemed,

passion owning.

The fourth, a ripe,

maiden, came,

Wild moment both above the image bended,

And with immortal hatred each on each.

Glared, and therewith her exultation blended,

To know the dead had 'scaped the other's reach!

Meanwhile, through all the words of anguish spoken, One lowly form had given no sound of speech,

Through all the signs of woe, no sign nor token:

But when they came to bear him to his rest,

They found her beauty paled, — her

heart was broken:

And in the Silent Land his shade confest

That she, of all the seven, loved him

best.

LAURA, MY DARLING. LAURA, my darling, the roses have blushed

At the kiss of the dew, and our chamber is hushed;

murmuring babe to your bosom has clung,

Our

And

hears in his slumber the song that you sung;

round him thrown,

with his own,

atoning

By smiles on one who fanned a later flame

In her slight soul, her fickle steps attended.

The fifth and sixth were sisters; at the same

young bride

Of the hour when you first, darling, came to my side.