ired Daughter of the Isles is laid,
The love of millions! How we did entrust
Futurity to her! and, though it must
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deemed
Our children should obey her child, and blessed
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seemed
Like stars to shepherd's eyes:--'twas but a meteor beamed.[534]

CLXXI.

Woe unto us--not her--for she sleeps well:[535]
The fickle reek of popular breath,[536] the tongue
Of hollow counsel, the false oracle,
Which from the birth of Monarchy hath rung
Its knell in princely ears, till the o'erstung
Nations have armed in madness--the strange fate
Which tumbles mightiest sovereigns,[537] and hath flung
Against their blind omnipotence a weight
Within the opposing scale, which crushes soon or late,--[qa]

CLXXII.

These might have been her destiny--but no--
Our hearts deny it: and so young, so fair,
Good without effort, great without a foe;
But now a Bride and Mother--and now _there!_
How many ties did that stern moment tear!
From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast
Is linked the electric chain of that despair,
Whose shock was as an Earthquake's,[538] and opprest
The land which loved thee so that none could love thee best.

CLXXIII.

Lo, Nemi![539] navelled in the woody hills
So far, that the uprooting Wind which tears
The oak from his foundation, and which spills
The Ocean o'er its boundary, and bears
Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares
The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;
And calm as cherished hate, its surface wears[qb]
A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake,
All coiled into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.

CLXXIV.

And near, Albano's scarce divided waves
Shine from a sister valley;--and afar[31.H.]
The Tiber winds, and the broad Ocean laves
The Latian coast where sprung the Epic war,
"Arms and the Man," whose re-ascending star
Rose o'er an empire:--but beneath thy right[540]
Tully reposed from Rome;--and where yon bar
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight[qc]
The Sabine farm was tilled, the weary Bard's delight.

CLXXV.

But I forget.--My Pilgrim'