The last still loveliest,-till-'t is gone -and all is gray.

Italia! oh Italia! thou who hast [St. 42 The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past,

On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame,

And annals graved in characters of flame.

Oh, God! that thou wert in thy naked

ness

Less lovely or more powerful, and couldst claim

Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press

To shed thy blood, and drink the tears of thy distress ;

Then might'st thou more appal; or, less desired,

Be homely and be peaceful, undeplored For thy destructive charms; then, still untired,

Would not be seen the armed torrents pour'd

Down the deep Alps; nor would the hostile horde

Of many-nation'd spoilers from the Po Quaff blood and water; nor the stranger's sword

Be thy sad weapon of defence, and so, Victor or vanquish'd, thou the slave of friend or foe.

In their shut breast their petty misery. What are our woes and sufferance] Come and see

The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way

O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, Ye!

Whose agonies are evils of a dayA world is at our feet as fragile as our clay.

The Niobe of nations! there she stands, Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;

An empty urn within her wither'd hands,

Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago; The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now, The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow, Old Tiber! through a marble wilderness?

Rise, with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress.

A ruin-yet what ruin! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been rear'd;

Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, And marvel where the spoil could have appear'd.

Hath it indeed been plunder'd, or but clear'd?

Alas! developed, opens the decay,
When the colossal fabric's form is near'd:
It will not bear the brightness of the day,
Which streams too much on all years,
man, have reft away.

But when the rising moon begins to climb

Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there;

When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,

And the low night-breeze waves along the air

The garland-forest, which the gray walls

Sadder than saddest night, for they dis tract the gaze,

And send us prying into the abyss, To gather what we shall be when the frame

Shall be resolved to something less than this

Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame.

And wipe the dust from off the idle name We never more shall hear,--but never more,

Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same:

It is enough in sooth that once we bore These fardels of the heart-the heart whose sweat was gore.

But I forget.--My Pilgrim's shrine is won, And he and I must part,--so let it beHis task and mine alike are nearly done; Yet once more let us look upon the sea; The midland ocean breaks on him and me;

And from the Alban Mount we now behold

Our friend of youth, that Ocean, which when we

Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold Those waves, we follow'd on till the dark Euxine roll'd

Upon the blue Symplegades: long yearsLong, though not very many--since have done [St. 176 Their work on both; some suffering and some tears

Have left us nearly where we had begun : Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run; We have had our reward, and it is here, That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun, And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear

As if there were no man to trouble what is clear.

Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling. place.

With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her!
Ye elements-in whose ennobling stir
I feel myself exalted-Can ye not
Accord me such a being! Do I err
In deeming such inhabit many a spot?
Though with them to converse can rare
ly be our lot.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields

Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray

And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies

His petty home in some near port or bay And dashest him again to earth :--there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls,

Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,

And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs

make

Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war-
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy
flake,

They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar

At Keswick, and through still continued fusion

Of one another's minds, at last have grown

To deem as a most logical conclusion,

That poesy has wreaths for you alone; There is a narrowness in such a notion, Which makes me wish you'd change your lakes for ocean.

I would not imitate the petty thought, Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, For all the glory your conversion brought.

Since gold alone should not have been its price,

You have your salary; was 't for that you wrought?

And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise.

You're shabby fellows-true-but poets

still,

And duly seated on the immortal hill.