Star of the brave! thy ray is pale,
And darkness must again prevail !
But, oh thou rainbow of the free!
Our tears and blood must flow for thee.
When thy bright promise fades away,
Our life is but a load of clay.
And freedom hallows with her tread
The silent cities of the dead;
For beautiful in death are they
Who proudly fall in her array;
oh goddess! may we be
For evermore with them or thee!
NAPOLEON'S FAREWELL.
[FROM THE FRENCH.]
FAREWELL to the land where the gloom of my glory
Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name-
She abandons me now,-but the page of her story,
The brightest or blackest, is fill'd with my fame.
I have warr'd with a world which vanquish'd me only
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far;
I have coped with the nations which dread me thus
lonely,
The last single captive to millions in war!
Farewell to thee, France!-when thy diadem crown'd me,
I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,-
But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,
Decay'd in thy glory and sunk in thy worth.
Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted
In strife with the storm, when their battles were won-
Then the eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted,
Hlad still soar'd with eyes fix'd on Victory's sun!
Farewell to thee, France!—but when liberty rallies
Once more in thy regions, remember me then-
The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys;
Though wither'd, thy tears will unfold it again :
Yet, yet I may baffle the hosts that surround us,
And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice-
There are links which must break in the chain that has
bound us,
Then turn thee, and call on the chief of thy choice!
ROUSSEAU-Voltaire-our Gibbon-and de Staël-
Leman! these names are worthy of thy shore,
Thy shore of names like these; wert thou no more,
Their memory thy remembrance would recal:
To them thy banks were lovely as to all;
But they have made them lovelier, for the lore
Of mighty minds doth hallow in the core
Of human hearts the ruin of a wall
Where dwelt the wise and wond'rous; but by thee How much more, Lake of Beauty! do we feel, In sweetly gliding o'er thy crystal sea, The wild glow of that not ungentle zeal, Which of the heirs of immortality
Is proud, and makes the breath of glory real! 1 Geneva, Ferney, Coppet, Lausanne.
WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF OF «
PLEASURES OF MEMORY.»
ABSENT or present, still to thee,
My friend, what magic spells belong!
As all can tell, who share, like me,
In turn, thy converse and thy song.
But when the dreaded hour shall come,
By friendship ever deem'd too nigh,
And « MEMORY » o'er her Druid's tomb
Shall weep that aught of thee can die,
How fondly will she then repay
Thy homage offer'd at her shrine,
And blend, while ages
roll away,
Her name immortally with thine!
THOUGH the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in thee.
Then when nature around me is siniling
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,
Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from thee.
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain-it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn-They may torture, but shall not subdue me'Tis of thee that I think—not of them.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake,-
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 't was not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.
Yet I blame not the world, nor depsise it,
Nor the war of the many with one-
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'T was folly not sooner to shun :
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.
From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd,
Thus much I at least may recal,
It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all:
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came, and went-and came, and brought no day.
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings-the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour
They fell and faded—and the crackling trunks
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