I have heard the cloudy thunder : Where is

power ?
Whose hand, whose essence, what divinity
Makes this alarum in the elements,
While I here idle listen on the shores
In fearless yet in aching ignorance ?
O tell me, lonely Goddess, by thy harp,
That waileth every morn and eventide,
Tell me why thus I rave, about these groves !
Mute thou remainest-Mute! yet I can read
A wondrous lesson in thy silent face :
Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
Names, deeds, gray legends, dire events, rebel-

lions,
Majesties, sovran voices, agonies,
Creations and destroyings, all at once
Pour into the wide hollows of my brain,
And deify me, as if some blithe wine
Or bright elixir peerless I had drunk,
And so become immortal.”-Thus the God,
While his enkindled eyes, with level glance
Beneath his white soft temples, steadfast kept
Trembling with light upon Mnemosyne.

GEORGE LORD BYRON.

BORN IN LONDON 1788-DIED AT MISSOLONGHI 1824.

DESCRIPTION OF ROME.
HE Niobe of na ! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless wo ;

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 dis-

tress.

The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood,

and Fire,
Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride ;
She saw her glories star by star expire,
And up the steep, barbarian monarchs ride,
Where the car climb'd the capitol ; far and

wide Temple and tower went down, nor left a site :Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,

O’er the dim fragments cast a lunar light, And

say, “ Here was, or is,” where all is doubly

night ?

The double night of ages, and of her,
Night's daughter, Ignorance, hath wrapt and

wrap
All round us; we but feel our way to err :
The ocean hath his chart, the stars their map,
And Knowledge spreads them on her ample

lap: But Rome is as the desert, where we steer Stumbling o'er recollections ; now we clap

Our hands, and cry, “ Eureka!” it is clearWhen but some false mirage of ruin rises near.

Alas! the lofty city! and, alas !
The trebly hundred triumphs ! and the day
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away!
Alas, for Tully's voice, and Virgil's lay,
And Livy's pictured page !—but these shall be
Her resurrection ; all beside-decay.

Alas, for Earth, for never shall we see
That brightness in her eye she bore when Rome

was free!

Oh thou, whose chariot rollid on Fortune's

wheel, Triumphant Sylla! Thou, who didst subdue Thy country's foes ere thou wouldst pause to

feel The wrath of thy own wrongs, or reap the due Of hoarded vengeance till thine eagles flew O’er prostrate Asia ;-thou, who with thy

frown Annihilated senates-Roman, too,

With all thy vices, for thou didst lay down With an atoning smile a more than earthly

crown

The dictatorial wreath,-couldst thou divine To what would one day dwindle that which

made Thee more than mortal ? and that so supine By aught than Romans Rome should thus be

laid ? She who was named Eternal, and array'd Her warriors but to conquer ; she who veil'd

Earth with her haughty shadow, and display'd,

Until the o'ercanopied horizon faild, Her rushing wings; oh! she who was Almighty

hail'd !

SONG OF THE GREEK BARD. THE Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece !

Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,

Where Delos rose, and Phæbus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse :

Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' “ Islands of the Blest,”

The mountains look on Marathon

And Marathon looks on the sea ;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free ;
For standing on the Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,

And men and nations—all were his !
He counted them at break of day-
And when the sun set—where were they?

And where are they ? and where art thou,

My country ? On thy voiceless shore The heroic lay is tuneless now

The heroic bosom beats no more ! And must thy lyre, so long divine, Degenerate into hands like mine?

Must we but weep o'er days more blest ?

Must we but blush ? Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast

A remnant of our Spartan dead !
Of the three hundred-grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ !

What! silent still ? and silent all ?

Ah! no :-the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall,

6 Let one living head, But one arise,—we come, we come !" 'Tis but the living who are dumb.

And answer,

In vain—in vain !-strike other chords ;

Fill high the cup with Samian wine ! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine ! Hark! rising to the ignoble call — How answers each bold bacchanal !

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet ;

Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone ? Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one ? You have the letters Cadmus gave Think ye he meant them for a slave ?