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Where angels bashful look'd. Others, though great,
Beneath their argument seem'd struggling; whiles
He from above descending, stoop'd to touch

The loftiest thought; and proudly stoop'd, as though
It scarce deserved his verse.

With Nature's self
He seem'd an old acquaintance, free to jest
At will with all her glorious majesty.
He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"
And play'd familiar with his hoary locks.
Stood on the Alps, stood on the Apennines,"
And with the thunder talk'd, as friend to friend;
And wove his garland of the lightning's wing,
In sportive twist,-the lightning's fiery wing,
Which, as the footsteps of the dreadful God,
Marching upon the storm in vengeance seem'd:
Then turn'd, and with the grasshopper, that sung
His evening song beneath his feet, conversed.

6. Suns, moons, and stars, and clouds his sisters were;
Rocks, mountains, meteors, seas, and winds, and storms,
His brothers,-younger brothers, whom he scarce
As equals deem'd. All passions of all men,-
The wild and tame-the gentle and severe;
All thoughts, all maxims, sacred and profane;
All creeds; all seasons, Time, Eternity;
All that was hated, and all that was dear;
All that was hoped, all that was fear'd by man,
He toss'd about, as tempest-wither'd leaves,
Then smiling look'd upon the wreck he made.

7. With terror now he froze the cowering blood;
And now dissolved the heart in tenderness:
Yet would not tremble, would not weep himself;
But back into his soul retired, alone,
Dark, sullen, proud,-gazing contemptuously
On hearts and passions prostrate at his fect.
So Ocean from the plains his waves had late
To desolation swept, retired in pride,

Exulting in the glōry of his might,

And seem'd to mock the ruin he had wrought.

8. As some fierce comet of tremendous size,
To which the stars did reverence as it pass'd,
So he through learning and through fancy took
His flight sublime; and on the loftiest top

Of Fame's dread mountain sat: not soil'd, and wōrn,
As if he from the earth had labor'd up;

But, as some bird of heavenly plumage fair
He look'd, which down from higher regions came,
And perch'd it there, to see what lay beneath.

9. The nations gazed, and wonder'd much, and praised; Critics before him fell in humble plight,—

Confounded fell,—and made debasing signs

To catch his eye; and stretch'd, and swell'd themselves,
To bursting nigh, to utter bulky words
Of admiration vast: and many, too,
Many that aim'd to imitate his flight,

With weaker wing, unearthly fluttering made,
And gave abundant sport to after days.

10. Great man! The nations gazed, and wonder'd much,
And praised; and many call'd his evil good.

Wits wrote in favor of his wickedness;
And kings to do him honor took delight.
Thus full of titles, flattery, honor, fame,—
Beyond desire, beyond ambition, full,—
He died he died of what? Of wretchedness.
Drank every cup of joy, heard every trump

Of fame; drank early, deeply drank; drank draughts
That common millions might have quench'd, then died
Of thirst, because there was no more to drink.

His goddess, Nature, woo'd, embraced, enjoy'd,
Fell from his arms, abhorr'd; his passions died,-
Died, all but dreary, solitary pride;

And all his sympathies in being died.

11. As some ill-guided bark, well built, and tall, Which angry tides cast out on desert shōre,

Ard then, retiring, left it there to rot

And molder in the winds and rains of heaven;
So he, cut from the sympathies of life,

And cast ashore from pleasure's boisterous surge,
A wandering, weary, worn, and wretched thing,
Scorch'd, and desolate, and blasted soul,

A gloomy wilderness of dying thought,
Repined and groan'd, and wither'd from the earth.
His groanings fill'd the land his numbers fill'd;
And yet he seem'd ashamed to groan: Poor man
Ashamed to ask, and yet he needed help.

ROBERT POLLOK'

89. MIDNIGHT-THE COLISEUM.

HE stars are forth, the moon above the tops
Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful!

I linger yet with Nature, for the night

Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,

I learn'd the language of another world.
2. I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering, upon such a night
I stood within the Colise'um's' wall,
'Midst the chief relics of all-mighty Rome:
The trees which grew along the broken arches
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bay'd beyond the Tiber; and
More near, from out the Cæsar's palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,

'See Biographical Sketch, p. 167.—a Col i sẻ' um, the amphitheatre of Vespasian, at Rome, said to have held 110,000 spectators. The ruins are still standing. It is said to have been built in one year, by the compulsory labor of twelve thousand Jews. It was called the Coliseum, from the colossal statue of Nero, which was placed in it. In this amphitheatre were exhibited the contests of gladiators and wild animals, and other savage spectacles in which the Romans delighted.

Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.

8 Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appear'd to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bow-shot. Where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through level'd battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,'
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;
But the glăd'iütor's bloody circus stands
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!

While Caesar's chambers and the Augustan halls
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.

4. And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which soften'd down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and fill'd up,
As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er

With silent worship of the great of old

The dead, but scepter'd sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns!

LORD BYRON.

GEORGE GORDON BYRON, the descendant and head of an ancient and noble family, was born in London, January 22d, 1788. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, 1805, with a rare reputation for general information, having read an almost incredible list of works in various departments of literature before the age of fifteen. He neglected the prescribed course of study at the university, but his genius kept him ever active. His first work, "The Hours of Idleness," appeared in 1807. It received a castigation from the "Edinburgh Review," to which we owe the first spirited outbreak of his talents, in the able and vigorous satire entitled, "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," published in 1809. He took his seat in the House of Lords a few days before the appearance of this satire; but soon left for the Continent. He returned home in 1811, with two cantos of "Childe Harold," which he had written abroad. They were published in March, 1812, and were immediately received with such unbounded admiration, as to justify the poet's terse remark, "I awoke one morning, and found myself famous." In May of the next year, appeared his "Giaour;" in November, the "Bride of Abydos," written in a week; and, about three mouths after.

'Hearth. Glåd'i à tor, a sword-player; a prize-fighter.

the "Corsair," written in he almost incredible space of ten days. January 2d, 1815, he was married to Miss Milbanke, the only daughter and heiress of Sir Ralph Milbanke; and his daughter, Augusta Ada, was born in December of that year. The husband and wife, for an unknown cause, separated forever, on the 15th of January of the next year. He quitted England for the last time on the 25th of April, 1816, and passed through Flanders, and along the Rhine to Switzerland, where he resided until the close of the year. He here composed the third canto of "Childe Harold," the "Prisoner of Chillon," "Darkness," **The Dream," and a part of “Manfred." The next year he went to Italy, where he resided several years, and where he wrote the fourth canto of " Childe Harold," "Mazeppa," "The Lament of Tasso," "Beppo," "Don Juan," and his dramatic poems. In 1823 he interested himself in the struggle of the Greeks to throw off the Turkish yoke and gain their independence. In December of that year, after making his arrangements with judgment and generosity, he sailed for Greece, and arrived at Missoloughi on the 5th of January, 1824, where he was received with great enthusiasm. In three months he did much to produce harmony and introduce order; but he had scarcely arranged his plans to aid the nation, when he was seized with a fever, and expired on the 19th of April, 1824, soon after having celebrated, in affecting verses, the completion of his thirty-sixth year.

I

90. VIEW OF THE COLISEUM.

WENT to see the Colise'um by moonlight. It is the monarch, the majesty of all ruins; there is nothing like it. All the associations of the place, too, give it the most impressive character. When you enter within this stupendous circle of ruinous walls and arches, and grand terraces of masonry, rising one above another, you stand upon the arena of the old gladiatorial combats and Christian martyrdoms; and as you lift your eyes to the vast amphitheater, you meet, in imagination, the eyes of a hundred thousand Romans, assembled to witness these bloody spectacles. What a multitude and mighty array of human beings! and how little do we know in modern times of great assemblies! One, two, and three, and at its last enlargement by Constantine,' more than three hundred thousand persons could be seated in the Circus Maximus!

2. But to return to the Colise'um; we went up under the con duct of a guide, upon the walls and terraces, or embankments which supported the ranges of scats. The seats have long since disappeared; and grass overgrows the spots where the pride, and power, and wealth, and beauty of Rome sat down to its bar

1 CONSTANTINE I., called the Great, was born 274 proclaimed emperor of Rome by the army 306, and died in 337.

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