LVI.

Her lover sinks-she sheds no ill-timed tear;
Her chief is slain-she fills his fatal post;
Her fellows flee-she checks their base career;
The foe retires-she heads the sallying host:
Who can appease like her a lover's ghost?
Who can avenge so well a leader's fall?

What maid retrieve when man's flush'd hope is lost?

Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul,

LXI.

Oft have I dream'd of thee! whose glorious

name

Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore:
And now I view thee, 'tis, alas, with shame
That I in feeblest accents must adore.
When I recount thy worshippers of yore

I tremble, and can only bend the knee;
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,
But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy

Nay, smile not at my sullen brow,
Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou
Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

And dost thou ask what secret woe
I bear, corroding joy and youth?
And wilt thou vainly seek to know
A pang even thou must fail to soothe P

It is not love, it is not hate,

Nor low Ambition's honours lost,
That bids me loathe my present state,
And fly from all I prized the most:

It is that weariness which springs
From all I meet, or hear, or see:
To me no pleasure Beauty brings;
Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

It is that settled, careless gloom

The fabled Hebrew wanderer bore, That will not look beyond the tomb, But cannot hope for rest before.

What exile from himself can flee?

To zones, though more and more remote, Still, still pursues, where'er I be,

The blight of Life-the demon Thought.