The mighty serpent, in his ire, Slides on with glittering, deadly trail. No torch the Ghebers need - so well They know each mystery of the dell, So oft have, in their wanderings, Look out, and let them pass, as things THIS WORLD IS ALL A FLEETING SHOW This world is all a fleeting show, For man's illusion given; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow There's nothing true but heaven! And false the light on glory's plume, As fading hues of even; And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom Poor wanderers of a stormy day, From wave to wave we 're driven, And fancy's flash, and Reason's ray, Serve but to light the troubled way There's nothing calm but heaven! LORD BYRON. (1788-1824.) APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN. THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods, What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan — Without a grave, unknelled, unconffined, and unknown. His steps are not upon thy paths—thy fields Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play. Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime The image of Eternity - the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane - as I do here. THE GLADIATOR. I see before me the gladiator lie: And his drooped head sinks gradually low: Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now The arena swims around him; he is gone, Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won. He heard it, but he heeded not; his eyes There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire, All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire, THE SHIPWRECK. There were two fathers in this ghastly crew, And with them their two sons, of whom the one Was more robust and hardy to the view; But he died early: and when he was gone, His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw One glance on him, and said, "Heaven's will be done! I can do nothing;" and he saw him thrown The other father had a weaklier child, He saw increasing on his father's heart, And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed: And when the wished-for shower at length was come, And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed, |