XXVIII.

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay,

The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms, the day
Battle's magnificently-stern array!

The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent The earth is cover'd thick with other clay,

Which her own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent, Rider and horse,-friend, foe,-in one red burial blent!

XXIX.

Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine; Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his line, And partly that I did his sire some wrong, And partly that bright names will hallow song; And his was of the bravest, and when shower'd The death-bolts deadliest the thinn'd files along, Even where the thickest of war's tempest lower'd, They reach'd no nobler breast than thine, young, gallant Howard!

VOL. II.

C

XXX.

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee,

And mine were nothing, had I such to give;
But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree,
Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,
And saw around me the wide field revive
With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring
Come forth her work of gladness to contrive,
With all her reckless birds upon the wing,

I turn'd from all she brought to those she could not bring. (7)

XXXI.

I turn'd to thee, to thousands, of whom each
And one as all a ghastly gap did make

In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach
Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake;

The Archangel's trump, not Glory's, must awake
Those whom they thirst for; though the sound of Fame
May for a moment soothe, it cannot slake
The fever of vain longing, and the name

So honour'd but assumes a stronger, bitterer claim.

XXXII.

They mourn, but smile at length; and, smiling, mourn:
The tree will wither long before it fall;

The hull drives on, though mast and sail be torn;
The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall
In massy hoariness; the ruin'd wall

Stands when its wind-worn battlements are gone;
The bars survive the captive they enthral;

The day drags through though storms keep out the sun; And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on:

XXXIII.

Even as a broken mirror, which the glass
In every fragment multiplies; and makes
A thousand images of one that was,

The same, and still the more, the more it breaks;
And thus the heart will do which not forsakes,

Living in shatter'd guise, and still, and cold,
And bloodless, with its sleepless sorrow aches,
Yet withers on till all without is old,

Showing no visible sign, for such things are untold.

XXXIV.

There is a very life in our despair,

Vitality of poison, a quick root

Which feeds these deadly branches; for it were
As nothing did we die; but Life will suit
Itself to Sorrow's most detested fruit,

Like to the apples on the (8) Dead Sea's shore,
All ashes to the taste: Did man compute

Existence by enjoyment, and count o'er

Such hours 'gainst years of life,—say, would he name threescore?

XXXV.

The Psalmist number'd out the years of man:
They are enough; and if thy tale be true,
Thou, who didst grudge him even that fleeting span,
More than enough, thou fatal Waterloo!

Millions of tongues record thee, and anew

Their children's lips shall echo them, and say— "Here, where the sword united nations drew, “Our countrymen were warring on that day!” And this is much, and all which will not pass away.

XXXVI.

There sunk the greatest, nor the worst of men,
Whose spirit antithetically mixt

One moment of the mightiest, and again
On little objects with like firmness fixt,
Extreme in all things! hadst thou been betwixt,
Thy throne had still been thine, or never been;
For daring made thy rise as fall: thou seek'st
Even now to re-assume the imperial mien,

And shake again the world, the Thunderer of the scene!

XXXVII.

Conqueror and captive of the earth art thou!
She trembles at thee still, and thy wild name
Was ne'er more bruited in men's minds than now
That thou art nothing, save the jest of Fame,
Who woo'd thee once, thy vassal, and became

The flatterer of thy fierceness, till thou wert

A god unto thyself; nor less the same

To the astounded kingdoms all inert,

Who deem'd thee for a time whate'er thou didst assert.