The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smiled;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, [shriek'd,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twined themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food:
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again;-a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom : no love was left;
All earth was but one thought-and that was
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang [death,
Of famine fed upon all entrails-men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish`d men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress-he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,

And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place,

[hands

Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold skeleton
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd,
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless-
A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;

[diedand

[dropp'd

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as they
They slept on the abyss without a surge—

The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The Moon, their mistress, had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them--She was the Universe.
DIODATI, July, 1816.

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE;

A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED. (1)

I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed
The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the names unknown,
Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd

The gardener of that ground, why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory task'd
Through the thick deaths of half a century;
And thus he answer'd-"Well, I do not know
Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;
He died before my day of sextonship,

And I had not the digging of this grave." And is this all? I thought,—and do we rip

The veil of Immortality, and crave

I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon, and so successless? As I said,
The architect of all on which we tread,
For Earth is but a tomb-stone, did essay

To extricate remembrance from the clay, [thought,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's
Were it not that all life must end in one,
Of which we are but dreamers;—as he caught
As 'twere the twilight of a former sun,

Thus spoke he,-"I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour,-and myself whate'er

Your honour pleases," then most pleased I
From out my pocket's avaricious nook [shook(3)
Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare
So much but inconveniently :-Ye smile,
I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,

"then most pleased, I shook My inward pocket's most retired nook, And out fell five and sixpence."-E.

Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell
With a deep thought, and with a soften'd eye,
On that old sexton's natural homily,
In which there was obscurity and fame,—
The glory and the nothing of a Name. (1)

DIODATI, 1816.

PROMETHEUS.

TITAN! to whose immortal eyes The sufferings of mortality, Seen in their sad reality,

Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;

The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,

Which speaks but in its loneliness, And then is jealous lest the sky Should have a listener, nor will sigh

Until its voice is echoless.

Titan! to thee the strife was given

Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity

Was thine-and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack;
The fate thou didst so well foresee,
But would not to appease him tell;
And in thy silence was his sentence,
And in his soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled
That in his hand the lightnings trembled.
Thy godlike crime was to be kind,

To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high
Still in thy patient energy,

(1) "The Grave of Churchill might have called from Lord Byron a deeper commemoration; for, though they generally differed in character and genius, there was a resemblance between their history and character. The satire of Churchill flowed with a more profuse, though not a more embittered, stream; while, on the other hand, he cannot be compared to Lord Byron in point of tenderness or imagination. But both these poets held themselves above the opinion of the world, and

In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable spirit,

Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,

A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign

To mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure source;

And man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence :
To which his spirit may oppose
Itself and equal to all woes,

And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry

Its own concentred recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making death a victory. DIODATI, July, 1816.

Pride may cool what passion heated,
'Time will tame the wayward will;
But the heart in friendship cheated
Throbs with woe's most maddening thrill:
Had I loved-I now might hate thee,
In that hatred solace seek,
Might exult to execrate thee,

And, in words, my vengeance wreak.
But there is a silent sorrow

Which can find no vent in speech, Which disdains relief to borrow

From the heights that song can reach. Like a clankless chain enthralling

Like the sleepless dreams that mockLike the frigid ice-drops falling

From the surf-surrounded rockSuch the cold and sickening feeling

Thou hast caused this heart to know; Stabb'd the deeper by concealing

From the world its bitter woe! Once it fondly, proudly, deem'd thee

All that fancy's self could paint; Once it honour'd and esteem'd thee As its idol and its saint!

More than woman thou wast to me;
Not as man I look'd on thee:
Why, like woman, then undo me?

Why heap man's worst curse on me? Wast thou but a fiend, assuming

Friendship's smile and woman's art, And, in borrow'd beauty blooming,

Trifling with a trusting heart?

By that eye, which once could glisten
With opposing glance to me;
By that ear, which once could listen
To each tale I told to thee;

By that lip, its smile bestowing,

Which could soften sorrow's gush, By that cheek, once brightly glowing With pure friendship's well-feign'd blush: By all those false charms united,

Thou hast wrought thy wanton will, And, without compunction, blighted What thou wouldst not kindly kill! Yet I curse thee not-in sadness

Still I feel how dear thou wert; Oh! I could not-e'en in madnessDoom thee to thy just desert! Live! and when my life is over,

Should thine own be lengthen'd long,

(1) Geneva, Ferney, Copet, Lausanne-[See ante, p. 133.]"I have," says, Lord Byron, " traversed all Rousseau's ground with the Héloïse before me, and am struck, to a degree that I

TO MR. HOBHOUSE,

ON HIS IMPRISONMENT IN NEWGATE.

WHAT made you in Lob's Pound to go,
My boy, Hobby?

Because I bade the people throw
The House into the lobby.
You hate the House-why canvass then,
My boy, Hobby?

Because I would reform the den,

As member for the mobby.

ROMANCE MUY DOLOROSO

DEL