Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,

Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed By a river, which its soften'd way did take

In currents through the calmer water spread Around the wildfowl nestled in the brake

:

And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed: The woods sloped downwards to its brink, and stood With their green faces fix'd upon the flood.

Its outlet dash'd into a deep cascade,
Sparkling with foam, until again subsiding,
Its shriller echoes-like an infant made
Quiet-sank into softer ripples, gliding
Into a rivulet and thus allay'd,

Pursued its course, now gleaming, and now hiding Its windings through the woods; now clear, now blue, According as the skies their shadows threw.

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile

(While yet the church was Rome's) stood half apart In a grand arch, which once screen'd many an aisle. These last had disappear'd-a loss to art:

The first yet frown'd superbly o'er the soil,

And kindled feelings in the roughest heart,

Which mourn'd the power of time's or tempest's march, In gazing on that venerable arch.

Within a niche, nigh to its pinnacle,

Twelve saints had once stood sanctified in stone; But these had fallen, not when the friars fell,

But in the war which struck Charles from his throne, When each house was a fortalice-as tell

The annals of full many a line undone,The gallant cavaliers, who fought in vain For those who knew not to resign or reign.

But in a higher niche, alone, but crown'd,
The Virgin-Mother of the God-born Child,
With her Son in her blessed arms, look'd round;
Spared by some chance when all beside was spoil'd;
She made the earth below seem holy ground.

This may be superstition, weak or wild,

But even the faintest relics of a shrine
Of any worship wake some thoughts divine.

A mighty window, hollow in the centre,

Shorn of its glass of thousand colourings, Through which the deepen'd glories once could enter, Streaming from off the sun like seraph's wings, Now yawns all desolate: now loud, now fainter,

The gale sweeps through its fretwork, and oft sings The owl his anthem, where the silenced quire Lie with their hallelujahs quench'd like fire.

But in the noontide of the moon, and when

The wind is winged from one point of heaven, There moans a strange unearthly sound, which then Is musical—a dying accent driven

Through the huge arch, which soars and sinks again.
Some deem it but the distant echo given

Back to the night-wind by the waterfall,
And harmonised by the old choral wall;

Others, that some original shape, or form

Shaped by decay perchance, hath given the power (Though less than that of Memnon's statue, warm In Egypt's rays, to harp at a fix'd hour) To this grey ruin, with a voice to charm

Sad, but serene, it sweeps o'er tree or tower; The cause I know not, nor can solve; but such The fact:-I've heard it,—once perhaps too much.

From THE SAME.-CANTO XV.

BETWEEN two worlds life hovers like a star,

'Twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge. How little do we know that which we are!

How less what we may be! The eternal surge Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar

Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Lash'd from the foam of ages; while the graves Of empires heave but like some passing waves.

Whatever star contain thy glory;
In the eternal depths of heaven
Albeit thou watchest with "the seven,"
Though through space infinite and hoary
Before thy bright wings worlds be driven,
Yet hear!

Oh! think of her who holds thee dear!

And though she nothing is to thee,
Yet think that thou art all to her.

Thou canst not tell,-and never be
Such pangs decreed to aught save me,-
The bitterness of tears.

Eternity is in thine years,

Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes;
With me thou canst not sympathise,

Except in love, and there thou must
Acknowledge that more loving dust
Ne'er wept beneath the skies.

Thou walk'st thy many worlds, thou see'st
The face of him who made thee great,
As he hath made me of the least

Of those cast out from Eden's gate;
Yet, Seraph dear!

Oh hear !

For thou hast loved me, and I would not die
Until I know what I must die in knowing,
That thou forgett'st in thine eternity

Her whose heart death could not keep from o'erflowing

For thee, immortal essence as thou art!

Great is their love who love in sin and fear; And such, I feel, are waging in my heart

A war unworthy: to an Adamite

Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts appear, For sorrow is our element;

Delight

An Eden kept afar from sight,

Though sometimes with our visions blent.
The hour is near

Which tells me we are not abandon'd quite.—
Appear! Appear!