Fade, with the amaranth plain, the myrtle grove, Which could not yield one hope to sorrowing love! *

* The form of this poem was a good deal altered by Mrs Hemans some years after its first publication, and, though done so perhaps to advantage, one verse was omitted. As originally written, the two following stanzas concluded the piece:—

For the most loved are they
Of whom Fame speaks not with her clarion voice,
In regal halls! the shades o'erhang their way.
The vale, with its deep fountains, is their choice,

And gentle hearts rejoice
Around their steps; till silently they die,
As a stream shrinks from summer's burning eye.

And the world knows not then,
Not then, nor ever, what pure thoughts are fled I
Yet these are they, who on the souls of men
Come back, when night her folding veil hath spread,

The long-remember'ddead!
But not with thee might aught save glory dwell—
Fade, fade away, thou shore of asphodel!

THE FUNERAL GENIUS;

AN ANCIENT STATUE.

"Debout, couronn6 de fleursjles bras eleves et poses sur sa tfite, et le dos appuye contre un pin, ce genie Bemble exprimer par son attitude le repos des morts. Les bas-reliefs des tombeaux offrent souvent des figures semblables."—Visconti, Description des Antiques du Muse's Royal.

Thou shouldst be look'd on when the starlight falls
Through the blue stillness of the summer-air,
Not by the torch-fire wavering on the walls—
It hath too fitful and too wild a glare!
And thou!—thy rest, the soft, the lovely, seems
To ask light steps, that will not break its dreams.

Flowers are upon thy brow; for so the dead
Were crown'd of old, with pale spring flowers like
these:

Sleep on thine eye hath sunk; yet softly shed,
As from the wing of some faint southern breeze:
And the pine-boughs o'ershadow thee with gloom
Which of the grove seems breathing—not the tomb.

They fear'd not death, whose calm and gracious thought

Of the last hour, hath settled thus in thee! Vol. III. Q

They who thy wreath of pallid roses wrought,
And laid thy head against the forest tree,
As that of one, hy music's dreamy close,
On the wood-violets lull'd to deep repose.

They fear'd not death!—yet who shall say his touch

Thus lightly falls on gentle things and fair?

Doth he bestow, or will he leave so much

Of tender beauty as thy features wear?

Thou sleeper of the bower! on whose young eyes

So still a night, a night of summer, lies!

Had they seen aught like thee ?—Did some fair boy
Thus, with his graceful hair, before them rest?
—His graceful hair, no more to wave in joy,
But drooping, as with heavy dews oppress'd:
And his eye veil'd so softly by its fringe,
And his lip faded to the white-rose tinge?

Oh! happy, if to them the one dread hour
Made known its lessons from a brow like thine!
If all their knowledge of the spoiler's power
Came by a look so tranquilly divine!
—Let him, who thus hath seen the lovely part,
Hold well that image to his thoughtful heart!

But thou, fair slumberer! was there less of woe,

Or love, or terror, in the days of old,

That men pour'd out their gladdening spirit's flow,

Like sunshine, on the desolate and cold,

And gave thy semblance to the shadowy king,

Who for deep souls had then a deeper sting?

In the dark bosom of the earth they laid
Far more than we—for loftier faith is ours!
Their gems were lost in ashes—yet they made
The grave a place of beauty and of flowers,
With fragrant wreaths, and summer boughs array'd,
And lovely sculpture gleaming through the shade.

Is it for us a darker gloom to shed

O'er its dim precincts ?—do we not intrust

But for a time, its chambers with our dead,

And strew immortal seed upon the dust?

—Why should we dwell on that which lies beneath,

When living light hath touch'd the brow of death?

THE TOMBS OF PLAT^EA.

FROM A PAINTING BY W3XL1AMS.

And there they sleep!—the men who stood
In arms before th' exulting sun,
And bathed their spears in Persian blood,
And taught the earth how freedom might be won.

They sleep !—th' Olympic wreaths are dead,
Th5 Athenian lyres are hush'd and gone;
The Dorian voice of song is fled—
Slumber, ye mighty! slumber deeply on.

They sleep, and seems not all around
As hallow'd unto glory's tomb?

Silence is on the battle ground, The heavens are loaded with a breathless gloom.

And stars are watching on their height,
But dimly seen through mist and cloud,
And still and solemn is the light
Which folds the plain, as with a glimmering shroud.

And thou, pale night-queen! here thy beams
Are not as those the shepherd loves,
Nor look they down on shining streams,
By Naiads haunted in their laurel groves:

Thou seest no pastoral hamlet sleep,
In shadowy quiet, 'midst its vines
No temple gleaming from the steep,
'Midst the grey olives, or the mountain pines:

But o'er a dim and boundless waste,
Thy rays, e'en like a tomb-lamp's, brood,
Where mans departed steps are traced
But by his dust, amidst the solitude.

And be it thus!—What slave shall tread
O'er freedom's ancient battle-plains?
Let deserts wrap the glorious dead,
When their bright Land sits weeping o'er her chains:

Here, where the Persian clarion rung,
And where the Spartan sword flash'd high,
And where the paean strains were sung,
From year to year swelTd on by liberty!