FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103  
104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   >>   >|  
to thee! Here's a sigh to those who love me, And a smile to those who hate; And, whatever sky's above me, Here's a heart for every fate. Though the ocean roar around me, Yet it still shall bear me on; Though a desert should surround me, It hath springs that may be won. Were 't the last drop in the well, As I gasped upon the brink, Ere my fainting spirit fell, 'Tis to thee that I would drink. With that water, as this wine, The libation I would pour Should be, 'Peace with thine and mine, And a health to thee, Tom Moore!' _Byron._ LXXVI THE RACE WITH DEATH O Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls Are level with the waters, there shall be A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, A loud lament along the sweeping sea! If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, What should thy sons do?--anything but weep: And yet they only murmur in their sleep. In contrast with their fathers--as the slime, The dull green ooze of the receding deep, Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam That drives the sailor shipless to his home, Are they to those that were; and thus they creep, Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets. O agony! that centuries should reap No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears, And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears, And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum With dull and daily dissonance repeats The echo of thy tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas and to the busy hum Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. But these are better than the gloomy errors, The weeds of nations in their last decay, When Vice walks forth with her unsoftened terrors, And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay; And Hope is nothing but a false delay, The sick man's lightening half an hour ere death, When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain, And apathy of limb, the dull beginning Of the c
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103  
104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

nations

 

Venice

 

Though

 
heaved
 
gondolas
 

greets

 
moonlight
 

mourner

 

throng

 

beneath


pillar
 

palace

 

Church

 

stranger

 

sinful

 
creatures
 

Thirteen

 

cheerful

 

hundred

 
dissonance

repeats

 
barbarian
 

subdued

 

overbeating

 

tyrant

 

wealth

 

appears

 
monument
 

turned

 

musical


luxuriant

 

smiles

 

madness

 

unsoftened

 

terrors

 

lightening

 

apathy

 

beginning

 

mortal

 

Faintness


harvest

 

happiness

 

voluptuous

 

gloomy

 

errors

 

sensations

 
battling
 

spring

 

libation

 

spirit