LVI. Afric is all the sun's, and as her earth Her human clay is kindled: full of power For good or evil, burning from its birth, The Moorish blood partakes the planet's hour, And like the soil beneath it will bring forth; Beauty and love were Haidée's mother's dower; But her large dark eye show'd deep Passion's force, Though sleeping lika a lion near a source. LVII. Her daughter, temper'd with a milder ray, But overwrought with passion and despair, LVIII. The last sight which she saw was Juan's gore, Where late he trod, her beautiful, her own; LIX. A vein had burst, and her sweet lips' pure dyes* Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o'er; This is no very uncommon effect of the violence of conflicting an And her head droop'd, as when the lily lies, O'ercharged with rain: ber summon'd handmaids bore Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes; Of herbs and cordials they produced their store, LX. Days lay she in that state unchanged, though chill, All hope: to look upon her sweet face bred LXI. The ruling passion, such as marble shows Their energy like life forms all their fame, different passions. The Doge Francis Foscari, on his deposition in 1457, hearing the bells of St. Mark announce the election of his successor, "mourut subitement d'une hemorragie causee par une veine qui s'eclata dans sa poitrine," (see Sismondi and Daru, vols i. and ii.) at the age of eighty years, when" Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?" Before I was sixteen years of age, I was witness to a melancholy instance of the same effect of mixed passions upon a young person; who, however, did not die in consequence, at that time, but fell a victim some years afterwards to a seizure of the same kind, arising from causes inti mately connected with agitation of mind. LXII. She woke at length, but not as sleepers wake, Rather the dead, for life seem'd something new, LXIII. She look'd on many a face with vacant eye, LXIV. Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not: However dear or cherish'd in their day; They changed from room to room, but all forgot. And yet those eyes, which they would fain be weaning Back to old thoughts seem'd full of fearful meaning. LXV. At last a slave bethought her of a harp; The harper came, and tuned his instrument; At the first notes, irregular and sharp, On him her flashing eyes a moment bent, Then to the wall she turn'd as if to warp Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent, And he begun a long low island song Of ancient days, ere tyranny grew strong. LXVI. Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall In time to his old tune; he changed the theme, And sung of love; the fierce name struck through all Her recollection; on her flash'd the dream Of what she was, and is, if ye could call To be so being; in a gushing stream The tears, rush'd forth from her o'erclouded brain, LXVII. Short solace, vain relief!—thought came too quick, LXVIII. Yet she betray'd at times a gleam of sense: Availed for either; neither change of place, LXIX. Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus; at last, And they who watch'd her nearest could not know The very instant, till the change that cast Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow, Glazed o'er her eyes-the beautiful, the blackOh! to possess such lustre and then lack! LXX. She died, but not alone; she held within LXXI. Thus lived-thus died she; never more on her Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made Through years or moons the inner weight to bear, Which colder hearts endure till they are laid By age in earth; her days and pleasures were Brief, but delightful-such as had not staid Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well By the sea shore, whereon she loved to dwell. LXXII. That isle is now all desolate and bare, Its dwellings down, its tenants past away; None but her own and father's grave is there, And nothing outward tells of human clay; |