No More Learning

Which may not--dare not see--but turns aside
To blackest shade--nor will endure a guide!

XXIII. [237]

His heart was formed for softness--warped to wrong, 1830
Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long;
Each feeling pure--as falls the dropping dew
Within the grot--like that had hardened too;
Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials passed,
But sunk, and chilled, and petrified at last. [238]
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the rock;
If such his heart, so shattered it the shock.
There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,
Though dark the shade--it sheltered--saved till now.
The thunder came--that bolt hath blasted both, 1840
The Granite's firmness, and the Lily's growth:
The gentle plant hath left no leaf to tell
Its tale, but shrunk and withered where it fell;
And of its cold protector, blacken round
But shivered fragments on the barren ground!

XXIV.

'Tis morn--to venture on his lonely hour
Few dare; though now Anselmo sought his tower.
He was not there, nor seen along the shore;
Ere night, alarmed, their isle is traversed o'er:
Another morn--another bids them seek, 1850
And shout his name till Echo waxeth weak;
Mount--grotto--cavern--valley searched in vain,
They find on shore a sea-boat's broken chain:
Their hope revives--they follow o'er the main.
'Tis idle all--moons roll on moons away,
And Conrad comes not, came not since that day:
Nor trace nor tidings of his doom declare
Where lives his grief, or perished his despair!
Long mourned his band whom none could mourn beside;
And fair the monument they gave his Bride: 1860
For him they raise not the recording stone--
His death yet dubious, deeds too widely known;
He left a Corsair's name to other times,
Linked with one virtue, and a thousand crimes. [239]





ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.

I.

'Tis done--but yesterday a King!
And armed with Kings to strive--
And now thou art a nameless thing:
So abject--yet alive!
Is this the man of thousand thrones,
Who strewed our earth with hostile bones,
And can he thus survive? [243]
Since he, miscalled the Morning Star,[244]
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.

II. [245]

Ill-minded man! why scourge thy kind
Who bowed so low the knee?
By gazing on thyself grown blind,
Thou taught'st the rest to see.
With might unquestioned,--power to save,--
Thine only gift hath been the grave
To those that worshipped thee;
Nor till thy fall could mortals guess
Ambition's less than littleness!

III.

Thanks for that lesson--it will teach
To after-warriors more
Than high Philosophy can preach,
And vainly preached before.
That spell upon the minds of men[246]
Breaks never to unite again,
That led them to adore
Those Pagod things of sabre-sway,
With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.

IV.

The triumph, and the vanity,
The rapture of the strife--[247]
The earthquake-voice of Victory,
To thee the breath of life;
The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seemed made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife--
All quelled! --Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

V. [248]

The Desolator desolate!