I SAW THEE WEEP.

GEORGE G. BYRON.

I saw thee weep-the big bright tear
Came o'er that eye of blue:
And then methought it did appear
A violet dropping dew:

I saw thee smile-the sapphire's blaze
Beside thee ceased to shine;

It could not match the living rays
That fill'd that glance of thine.

As clouds from yonder sun receive
A deep and mellow dye,

Which scarce the shade of coming eve

Can banish from the sky,

Those smiles unto the moodiest mind

Their own pure joy impart;

Their sunshine leaves a glow behind, That lightens o'er the heart.

NAPOLEON AT REST.

J. PIERPONT.

IS falchion flashed along the Nile,

His host he led through Alpine snows; O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while, His eagle-flag unrolled-and froze!

Here sleeps he now, alone!-not one,
Of all the kings whose crowns he gave,

Ber ls o'er his dust; nor wife nor son
Has ever seen or sought his grave.

Behind the sea-girt rock, the star

That led him on from crown to crown

Has sunk, and nations from afar

Gazed as it faded and went down.

High is his tomb: the ocean flood,

Far, far below, by storms is curled-
As round him heaved, while high he stood,
A stormy and unstable world.

Alone he sleeps: the mountain cloud,

That night hangs round him, and the breath

Of morning scatters, is the shroud

That wraps the conqueror's clay in death.

Pause here! The far off world at last

Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones, And to the earth its miters cast,

Lies powerless now beneath these stones.

Hark! Comes there from the pyramids,
And from Siberian wastes of snow,

And Europe's hills, a voice that bids

The world be awed to mourn him?-No!

The only, the perpetual dirge,

That's heard here is the sea-bird's cry

The mournful murmur of the

surge,

The clouds' deep voice, the wind's low sigh.

AND THOU ART DEAD.

GEORGE GORDON (LORD) BYRON.

ND thou art dead, as young and fair,
As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!

Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,

There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,

So I behold them not:

It is enough for me to prove

That what I loved, and long must love,

Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,
'Tis nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,

And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,

Nor

age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see

Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;

The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,

Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

I envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:

And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to day;
Since earthly eye but ill but bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne

To see thy beauties fade;

The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:

Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last:

Extinguish'd, not decay'd;