And if within my tuneful task

I wake too oft the mournful note, Then pour again the golden flask, For it has laughter in its throat.

And while I deem you sit and quaff,
I shall no longer be alone,
Nor think my dusty pack and staff
My sole companions in Cologne.

VENICE.

I.

NIGHT on the Adriatic, night!
And like a mirage of the plain,
With all her marvellous domes of
light,

Pale Venice looms along the main.

No sound from the receding shore,

No sound from all the broad lagoon, Save where the light and springing oar Brightens our track beneath the

moon:

Or save where yon high campanile

II.

Lo! here awhile suspend the oar;
Rest in the Mocenigo's shade,
For Genius hath within this door
His charmed, though transient,
dwelling made.

Somewhat of "Harold's" spirit yet, Methinks, still lights these crumbling halls;

For where the flame of song is set
It burns, though all the temple falls.

Oh, tell me not those days were given
To Passion and her pampered brood;
Or that the eagle stoops from heaven
To dye his talons deep in blood

I hear alone his deathless strain
From sacred inspiration won,
As I would only watch again
The eagle when he nears the sun.

III.

Or where those dusky giants wheel And smite the ringing helm of Time.

now,

Some friend well tried and cherished

Oft in my bright and boyish hours
I lived in dreams what now I live,
And saw these palaces and towers
In all the light romance can give.

They rose along my native stream, They charmed the lakelet in the glen;

But in this hour the waking dream More frail and dream-like seems than then.

A matchless scene, a matchless night,
A tide below, a moon above;
An hour for music and delight,
For gliding gondolas and love!

But here, alas! you hark in vain,-
When Venice fell her music died;
And voiceless as a funeral train,

The blackened barges swim the tide.

The harp, which Tasso loved to wake, Hangs on the willow where it sleeps, And while the light strings sigh or break,

Pale Venice by the water weeps.

IV.

'Tis past, and weary droops the wing That thus hath borne me idly on; The thoughts I have essayed to sing Are but as bubbles touched and gone.

But, Venice, cold his soul must be, Who, looking on thy beauty, hears The story of thy wrongs, if he

Is moved to neither song nor tears.

To glide by temples fair and proud,
Between deserted marble walls,
Or see the hireling foeman crowd
Rough-shod her noblest palace
halls;

To know her left to Vandal foes

Until her nest be robbed and gone,-To see her bleeding breast, which shows

How dies the Adriatic swan;—

To know that all her wings are shorn; That Fate has written her decree, That soon the nations here shall mourn The lone Palmyra of the sea ;—

Where waved her vassal flags of yore

By valor in the Orient won;
To see the Austrian vulture soar,

A blot against the morning sun;—

To hear a rough and foreign speech

Commanding the old ocean mart,Are mournful sights and sounds that reach,

And wake to pity, all the heart.

NIGHTFALL.

IN MEMORY OF A POET.

I SAW in the silent afternoon
The overladen sun go down;
While, in the opposing sky, the moon,
Between the steeples of the town,

Went upward, like a golden scale,

Outweighed by that which sank beyond;

And over the river, and over the vale, With odors from the lily-pond,

The purple vapors calmly swung; And, gathering in the twilight trees,

The many vesper minstrels sung Their plaintive mid-day memories,

Till, one by one, they dropped away From music into slumber deep; And now the very woodlands lay Folding their shadowy wings in sleep.

Oh, Peace! that like a vesper psalm Hallows the daylight at its close; Oh, Sleep! that like the vapor's calm Mantles the spirit in repose,—

Through all the twilight falling dim, Through all the song which passed

away,

Ye did not stoop your wings to him Whose shallop on the river lay

Without an oar, without a helm ;His great soul in his marvellous eyes Gazing on from realm to realm

Through all the world of mysteries!