"But should suspense permit the Foe to cry,
'Behold they tremble! – haughty their array,
Yet of their number no one dares to die?'
In soul I swept the indignity away:

Old frailties then recurred: but lofty thought, In act embodied, my deliverance wrought.

"And Thou, though strong in love, art all too weak In reason, in self-government too slow;

I counsel thee by fortitude to seek
Our blest reunion in the shades below.

The invisible world with thee hath sympathized;
Be thy affections raised and solemnized.

"Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend, -
Seeking a higher object. Love was given,
Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that end;
For this the passion to excess was driven, —
That self might be annulled: her bondage prove
The fetters of a dream, opposed to love."

Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes reappears! Round the dear Shade she would have clung,'t is vain :

The hours are past, too brief had they been

years;

And him no mortal effort can detain :

Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day,
He through the portal takes his silent way,
And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse she lay.

Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved,
She perished; and, as for a wilful crime,
By the just Gods, whom no weak pity moved,
Was doomed to wear out her appointed time,
Apart from happy Ghosts, that gather flowers
Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers.

-Yet tears to human suffering are due;
And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown
Are mourned by man, and not by man alone,
As fondly he believes. - Upon the side
Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained)
A knot of spiry trees for ages grew

From out the tomb of him for whom she died;
And ever, when such stature they had gained
That Ilium's walls were subject to their view,
The trees' tall summits withered at the sight;
A constant interchange of growth and blight!*

1814.

* For the account of these long-lived trees, see Pliny's Natural History, Lib. XVI. Cap. 44; and for the features in the character of Protesilaus see the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides. Virgil places the Shade of Laodamia in a mournful region, among unhappy Lovers:

His Laodamia

It Comes.

XXXII.

DION.

(SEE PLUTARCH.)

I.

SERENE, and fitted to embrace,
Where'er he turned, a swan-like grace
Of haughtiness without pretence,
And to unfold a still magnificence,
Was princely Dion, in the power
And beauty of his happier hour.
And what pure homage then did wait
On Dion's virtues, while the lunar beam
Of Plato's genius, from its lofty sphere,
Fell round him in the grove of Academe,
Softening their inbred dignity austere, —
That he, not too elate

With self-sufficing solitude,

But with majestic lowliness endued,

Might in the universal bosom reign,

And from affectionate observance gain
Help, under every change of adverse fate.

II.

Five thousand warriors,- O the rapturous day!Each crowned with flowers, and armed with spear

and shield,

Or ruder weapon which their course might yield, To Syracuse advance in bright array.

Who leads them on? - The anxious people see
Long-exiled Dion marching at their head,
He also crowned with flowers of Sicily,
And in a white, far-beaming corselet clad!
Pure transport undisturbed by doubt or fear
The gazers feel; and, rushing to the plain,
Salute those strangers as a holy train
Or blest procession (to the Immortals dear)
That brought their precious liberty again.
Lo! when the gates are entered, on each hand,
Down the long street, rich goblets filled with wine
In seemly order stand,

On tables set, as if for rites divine;

And, as the great Deliverer marches by,

He looks on festal ground with fruits bestrown; And flowers are on his person thrown

In boundless prodigality;

Nor doth the general voice abstain from prayer, Invoking Dion's tutelary care,

As if a very Deity he were?

III.

Mourn, hills and groves of Attica! and mourn,
Ilissus, bending o'er thy classic urn!

Mourn, and lament for him whose spirit dreads
Your once sweet memory, studious walks and

shades!

For him who to divinity aspired,

Not on the breath of popular applause,

But through dependence on the sacred laws

Framed in the schools where Wisdom dwelt retired, Intent to trace the ideal path of right

(More fair than heaven's broad causeway paved with stars)

Which Dion learned to measure with sublime de

light;

But he hath overleaped the eternal bars ;

And, following guides whose craft holds no consent With aught that breathes the ethereal element, Hath stained the robes of civil power with blood, Unjustly shed, though for the public good. Whence doubts that came too late, and wishes vain, Hollow excuses, and triumphant pain;

And oft his cogitations sink as low

As, through the abysses of a joyless heart,
The heaviest plummet of despair can go.

But whence that sudden check? that fearful start?
He hears an uncouth sound,

Anon his lifted eyes

Saw, at a long-drawn gallery's dusky bound,
A Shape of more than mortal size

And hideous aspect, stalking round and round!
A woman's garb the Phantom wore,
And fiercely swept the marble floor,
Like Auster whirling to and fro,
His force on Caspian foam to try;
Or Boreas when he scours the snow
That skims the plains of Thessaly,
Or when aloft on Mænalus he stops
His flight, 'mid eddying pine-tree tops!