Page images
PDF
EPUB

And she would not delay

Her due return :—while she was gone,
Methought I felt too much alone.

XX.

"She came with mother and with sire-
What need of more?—I will not tire
With long recital of the rest,

Since I became the Cossack's guest:
They found me senseless on the plain--
They bore me to the nearest hut-
They brought me into life again—
Me-one day o'er their realm to reign!
Thus the vain fool who strove to glut
His rage, refining on my pain,

Sent me forth to the wilderness, Bound, naked, bleeding, and alone, the desert to a throne,―

Το

pass

What mortal his own doom may guess?
Let none despond, let none despair!
To-morrow the Borysthenes

May see our coursers graze at ease
Upon this Turkish bank,-and never
Had I such welcome for a river

As I shall yield when safely there.
Comrades, good night!"-The Hetman threw
His length beneath the dak-tree shade,
With leafy couch already made,

A bed nor comfortless nor new

To him, who took his rest whene'er

The hour arrived, no matter where:

His eyes the hastening slumbers steep.

And if ye marvel Charles forgot
To thank his tale, he wonder'd not,-

The king had been an hour asleep.

ODE.

ODE.

I.

Oн Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls
Are level with the waters, there shall be
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,

A loud lament along the sweeping sea!
If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,
What should thy sons do?-any thing but weep:
And yet they only murmur in their sleep.
In contrast with their fathers-as the slime,
The dull green ooze of the receding deep,
Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam,
That drives the sailor shipless to his home,

Are they to those that were; and thus they creep,
Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets.
Oh! agony-that centuries should reap

No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years
Of wealth and glory turn'd to dust and tears;
And every monument the stranger meets,
Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets;
And even the Lion all subdued appears,

« PreviousContinue »