Like waves that follow o'er the sea, The wretch still hopes his woes must end, Came thickly thundering on,

And Death, whom he should deem his friend, As if our faint approach to meet;

Appears, to his distemper'd eyes,
The sight re-nerved my courser's feet, Arrived to rob him of his prize,
A moment staggering, feebly fleet,

The tree of his new Paradise.
A moment, with a faint low neigh, To-morrow would have given hin all,
He answer'd, and then fell;

Repaid his pangs, repair'd his fall;
With gasps and glazing eyes he lay, To-morrow would have been the first
And reeking limbs immoveable,

Of days no more deplored or curst, His first and last career is done!

But bright, and long, and beckoning y ears, On came the troop, they saw him stoop, Seen dazzling through the mist of tears, They saw me strangely bound along Guerdon of many a painful hour; His back with many a bloody thong : To-morrow would have given him power They stop—they start, they snuff the air, To rule, to shine, to smite, to saveGallop a moment here and there, And must it dawn upon his grave? Approach, retire, wheel round and round, Then plunging back with sudden bound, Headed by one black mighty steed,

“The sun was sinking-still I lay Who seem'd the patriarch of his breed,

Chain'd to the chill and stiffening steed, Without a single speck or hair

I thought to mingle there our clay ;
Of white upon his shaggy hide;

And my dim eyes of death had need,
They snort, they foam, neigh, swerve aside, No hope arose of being freed:
And backward to the forest fly,

I cast my last looks up the sky,

And there between me and the sun
By instinct from a human eye.--.
They left me there, to my despair,

I saw the expecting raven fly
Link'd to the dead and stiffening wretch,

Who scarce would wait till both should die, Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch,

Ere his repast begun; Relieved from that unwonted weight,

He flew, and perch'd, then flew once more,

And each time nearer than before;
From whence I could not extricate
Nor him nor me—and there we lay,

I saw his wing through twilight flit,

And once so near me he alit
The dying on the dead!
I little deem'd another day

I could have smote, but lack'd the strength; Would see my houseless, helpless head.

But the slight motion of my hand,
And feeble scratching of the sand,

The exerted throat's faint struggling noise, “And there from morn till twilight bound, Which scarcely could be call'd a voice,

Together scared him off at length.-
I felt the heavy hours toil round,
With just enough of life to see

I know no more-my latest dream
My last of suns go down on me,

Is something of a lovely star

Which fix?d my dull eyes from afar,
In hopeless certainty of mind,
That makes us feel at length resign'd

And went and came with wandering beani, To that which our foreboding years

And of the cold, dull, swimming, dense

Sensation of recurring sense,
Presents the worst and last of fears
Inevitable - even a boon,

And then subsiding back to death,
Nor more unkind for coming soon;

And then again a little breath,

A little thrill, a short suspense,
Yet shunn'd and dreaded with such care,
As if it only were a snare

An icy sickness curdling o'er
That prudence might escape;

My heart, and sparks that cross'd my brain-
At times both wish'd for and implored, A gasp, a throb, a start of pain,
At times sought with self-pointed sword,

A sigh, and nothing more.
Yet still a dark and hideous close
To even intolerable woes,

"I woke-Where was 1?- Do I see And welcome in no shape.

A human face look down on me? And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure, And doth a roof above me close? They who have revell'd beyond measure Do these lim on a couch repose ? In bequty, wassail, wine, and treasure, Is this a chamber where I lie? Die calm, or calmer, oft than he

And is it mortal yon bright eye, Whose heritage was misery :

That watches me with gentle glance?
For he who hath in turn run through I closed my own again once more,
All that was beautiful and new,

As doubtful that the former trance
Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave; Could not as yet be o’er.
And, save the future (which is view'd A slender girl, long-hair'd, and tall,
Not quite as men are base or good, Sate watching by the cottage-wall;
But as their nerves may be endued.) The sparkle of her eye I caught,
With nought perhaps to grieve:-

Even with my first return of thought;

For ever and anon she threw

“She came with mother and with sireA prying, pitying glance on me

What need of more?--I will not tire
With her black eyes so wild and free: With long recital of the rest,
I gazed, and gazed, until I knew Since I became the Cossack's guest:
No vision it could be,

They found me senseless on the plain --
But that I lived, and was released They bore me to the nearest hut-
From adding to the vulture's feast: They brought me into life again-
And when the Cossack-maid beheld

Me—one day o'er their realm to reign! My heavy eyes at length unseald,

Thus the vain fool who strove to glut
She smiled -and I essay'd to speak, His rage, refining on my pain,
But fail'd-and she approach'd, and made Sent me forth to the wilderness,
With lip and finger signs that said, Bound, naked, bleeding, and alone,
I must not strive as yet to break

To pass the desert to a throne.-
The silence, till my strength should be What mortal his own doom may guess ? -
Enough to leave my accents free;

Let none despond, let none despair!
And then her hand on mine she laid, To-morrow the Borysthenes
And smooth'd the pillow for my head, May see our coursers graze at ease
And stole along on tiptoe tread,

Upon his Turkish bank,-and never
And gently oped the door, and spake Had I such welcome for a river
In whispers - ne'er was voice so sweet! As I shall yield when safely there.
Even music follow'd her light feet! - Comrades, good night!”– The Hetman threw
But those she call'd were not awake, His length beneath the oak-tree-shade,
And she went forth; but, ere she pass’d, With leafy couch already made,
Another look on me she cast,

A bed nor comfortless nor new Another sign slie made, to say,

To him who took his rest whene'er That I had nought to fear, that all The hour arrived, no matter where :Were near, at my command or call, His eyes the hastening slumbers steep. And she would not delay

And if ye marvel Charles forgot
Her due return; - while she was gone To thank his tale, he wonder'd not, -
Methought I felt too much alone. The king had been an hour asleep.

B E P P 0,

Á V E NET LAN STORY.

ROSALIND. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller: Look, you lisp, and wear strange suits; disable all the benefits of your own country; be out of love with your Nativity, and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are ; or I will scarce think that you have swain in a GONDOLA.

As You LIKE IT, Act. IV. Sc. I.

Annotation of the Commentators.
That is, been at Venice, which was inuch visited by the young English
gentlemen of those times, and was then what Paris iš now-ihe seat of all
dissoluteness.

covers

"Tis known, at least is shonld be, that | The moment night with dusky mantle

throughout All countries of the Catholic persuasion, The skies (and the more duskily the better), Some weeks before Shrove-Tuesday comes The time less liked by husbands than by about,

lovers 'The people take their fill of recreation, Begins, and pruderyflings aside her And bay repentance, ere they grow devout,

fetter; However high their rank, or low their And gaiety on restless tiptoe lovers,

station,

Giggling with all the gallants who beset With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking,

inasking,

And there are songs, and quavers, roaring, And other things which may be had for

humming, asking

Guitars, and every other sort of strumıning,

her;

cross

coarse,

And there are dresses splendid, but fantast- | And therefore humbly I would recommend

ical,

“The curious in fish-sauce,” before they Masks of all times and nations, Turks and

Jews,

The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or And harlequins and clowns, with feats

friend, gymnastical, Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in Greeks, Romans, Yankee - doodles, and

gross Hindoos; (Or if set out beforehand, these may send All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiasticai, By any means least liable to loss), All people, as their fancies hit, may choose, Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Hervey, But no one in these parts may quiz the Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh clergy,

starve ye; Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers ! I

charge ye.

That is to say, if your religion's Roman,

And you at Rome would do as Romans do, You'd better walk about begirt with briars, According to the proverb, - although no Instead of coat and smallclothes, than put on A single stitch reflecting upon friars, If foreign, is obliged to fast; and you, Although you swore it only was in fun; If protestant, or sickly, or a woman, They'd haul you o'er the coals, and stir would rather dine in sin on a ragout

the fires

Dine, and be d-d! I don't mean to be Of Phlegethon with every mother's son, Nor say one mass to cool the cauldron's But that's the penalty, to say no worse.

bubble That boild your bones, unless you paid

them double. Of all the places where the Carnival

Was most facetious in the days of yore,

For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball, But saving this, you may put on whate'er And masque,and mime and mystery,and more You like, by way of doublet, cape, or cloak, Than I have time to tell now, or at all, Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Rag-Fair, Venice the bell from every city bore, Would rig you out in seriousness or joke; And at the moment when I fix my story, And even in Italy such places are

That sca-born city was in all her glory.
With prettier names in softer accents spoke,
For, bating Covent-Garden, I can hit on
No place that's called “Piazza” in Great- They've pretty faces yet, those same
Britain.

Venetians,
Black eyes, arch'd brows, and sweet ex-

pressions still, This feast is named the Carnival, which Such as of old were copied from the being

Grecians, Interpreted, implies “farewell to flesh:” In ancient arts by moderns mimick'd ill; So call’d, because the name and thing And like so many lepuses of Titian's

agreeing, (The best's at Florence-see it, if ye will), Through Lent they live on fish both salt They look when leaning over the balcony,

and fresh. Or stepp'd from out a picture by Giorgione, But why they usher Lent with so much

glee in, Is more than I can tell, although I guess Whose tints are truth and beauty at their 'Tis as we take a glass with friends at

parting,

And when you to Manfrini's palace go, In the stage-coach or packet, just at starting. That picture howsoever fine the rest)

Is loveliest to my mind of all the show:

It may perhaps be also to your zest, And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes, And that's the cause I rhyme upon it so, And solid meats, and highly spiced ragouts, Tis but a portrait of his son, and wife, To live for forty days on ill-dress'd fishes, And self; but such a woman! love in life! Because they have no sauces to their stews, A thing which causes many “poohs” and

“pishes," Love in full life and length, not love ideal, And several oaths (which would not suit No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name,

the Muse) But something better still, so very real, From travellers accustojn’d from a boy That the sweet model must have been the To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy

best;

A thing that you would purchase, beg, or Which smothers women in a bed 'of feather,

steal,

But worthier of these much more jolly Wer't not impossible, besides a shame:

fellows; The face recals some face, as 'twere with When weary of the matrimonial tether

pain,

His head for such a wife no mortal bothers, You once have seen, but ne'er will see But takes at once another, or another's.

again;

Did'st ever see a gondola ? For fear One of those forms which flit by us, when we You should not, I'll describe it you exactly; Are young, and fix our eyes on every face; 'Tis a long cover'd boat that's common here, And, oh! the loveliness at times we see Carved at the prow, built lightly, but In momentary gliding, the soft grace,

compactly, The youth, the bloom, the beauty which Row'd by two rowers, each called “Gonagree,

dolier," In many a nameless being we retrace, It glides along the water looking blackly, Whose course and home we knew not, nor Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe,

shall know, Where none can make out what you say Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below.

or do.

I said that like a picture by Giorgione And up and down the long canals they go, Venetian women were, and so they are,

And under the Rialto shoot along, Particularly seen from a balcony,

By night and day, all paces, swift or slow, (For beanty's sometimes best set off afar). And round the theatres, a sable throng, And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni, They wait in their dusk livery of woe, They peep from out the blind, or o'er the But not to them do woeful things belong,

bar;

For sometimes they contain a deal of fun, And, truth to say, they're mostly very Like mourning coaches when the funeral's pretty,

done. And rather like to show it, more's the

pity!

But to my story.- 'Twas some years ago,

ft may be thirty, forty, more or less, For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs, The Carnival was at its height, and so Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a Were all kinds of buffoonery and dress ;

letter,

A certain lady went to see the show, Which flies on wings of light-heeld Mer- Her real name I know not, nor can guess,

curies,

And so we'll call her Laura, if you please, Who do such things because they know no Because it slips into my verse with ease.

better; And then, God knows what mischief may

arise,

She was not old, nor young, nor at the When love links two, young people in one

years fetter,

Which certain people call a “certain age", Vile assignations, and adulterous beds, Which yet the most uncertain age appears, Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, and Because I never heard, nor could engage

heads.

A person yet by prayers, or bribes or tears,
To name, define by speech, or write on

page,
Shakespeare described the sex in Desdemona The period meant precisely by that word,
As very fair, but yet suspect in fame, Which surely is exceedingly absurd.
And to this day from Venice to Verona
Such matters may be probably the same,
Except that since those times was never Laura was blooming still, had made the best

known a

Of time, and time return'd the compliment, Husband whom mere suspicion could in- And treated her genteelly, so that, drest,

flame

She look'd extremely well where'er she To suffocate a wife no more than twenty,

went: Because she had a "cavalier servente." A pretty woman is a welcome guest,

And Laura's brow a frown had rarely bent,

Indeed she shone all smiles, and seem'd Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous)

to flatter Is of a fair complexion altogether, Mankind with her black eyes for looking Not like that sooty devil of Othello's

ease:

She was a married woman; 'tis convenient, And could not sleep with ease alone at Because in Christian countries 'tis a rule

night ; To view their little slips with eyes more She deem'd the window-frames and shutters lenient ;

brittle Whereas if single ladies play the fool, Against a daring house-breaker or sprite, (Unless, within the period intervenient, And so she thought it prudent to connect her À well-timed wedding makes the scandal With a vice-husband, chiefly to protect her.

cool) I don't know how they ever can get over it, Except they manage never to discover it. She chose, (and what is there they will

not choose,

If only you will but oppose their choice?) Her husband saild upon the Adriatic, 'Till Beppo should return from his long And made some voyages, too, in other seas,

cruise, And when he lay in quarantine for pratique And bid once more her faithful heart rejoice, (A forty days' precaution 'gainst disease), A man some women like, and yet abuseHis wife would mount, at times, her highest A coxcomb was he by the public voice;

attic,

A Count of wealth, they said, as well as For thence she could discern the ship with

quality,

And in his pleasures of great liberality.
He was a merchant trading to Aleppo,
His name Giuseppe, callid, more briefly,

Beppo.
And then he was a Count, and then he

knew

Music and dancing, fiddling, French and He was a man as dusky as a Spaniard,

Tuscan; Sunburnt with travel, yet a portly figure; The last not easy, be it known to you, Though, colour'd, as it were, within a For few Italians speak the right Etruscan.

tanyard,

He was a critic upon operas too, He was a person both of sense and vigour-And knew all niceties of the sock and A better seaman never yet did man yard :

buskin; And she, although her manners show'd no And no Venetian audience could endure a

rigour,

Song, scene, or air, when he cried “gecWas deem'd a woman of the strictest

catura." principle, So much as to be thought almost invincible.

His “bravo" was decisive, for that sound

Hush'd “academie,” sigh'd in silent awe; But several years elapsed since they had met, The fiddlers trembled as he look'd around, Some people thought the ship was lost, For fear of some false note's detected flaw.

and some

The “prima donna’s ” tuneful heart would That he had somehow blunder'd into debt,

bound, And did not like the thoughts of steering Dreading the deep damnation of his "bah!”

home;

Soprano, basso, even the contra-alto, And there were several offer'd any bet, Wish'd him five fathom under the Rialto.' Or that he would, or that he would not come, For most men (till by losing render'd sager) Will back their own opinions with a wager. He patronized the Improvisatori,

Nay,could himselfextemporize some stanzas,

Wrote rhymes, sang songs, could also tell 'Tis said that their last parting was pathetic,

a story, As partings often are, or ought to be, Sold pictures, and was skilful in the dance as And their presentiment was quite prophetic Italians can be, though in this their glory That they should never more each other see, Must surely yield the palm to that which (A sort of morbid feeling, half poetic,

France has; Which I have known occur in two or three) In short, he was a perfect cavaliero, When kneeling on the shore upon her sad And to his very valet seem'd a hero.

knee, He left this Adriatic Ariadne.

Then he was faithful too, as well

amorous; And Laura waited long, and wept a little, So that no sort of female could complain, And thought of wearing weeds, as well she Although they're now and then a little might;

clamorous, She almost lost all appetite for victual, He never put the pretty souls in pain :

as