Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of excess :

The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain

The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;

It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own;

"That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears,

And though the eye may sparkle still, 't is where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast, Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest; "Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreath,

All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath.

"Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain;

But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,

But neither heat, not frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been."
COLERIDGE'S Christabel.

FARE thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never

'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

Would that breast were bared before thee Where thy head so oft hath lain, While that placid sleep came o'er thee Which thou ne'er canst know again:

Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show !
Then thou wouldst at last discover
"T was not well to spurn it so.

Though the world for this commend thee

Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe:

Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away:

Still thine own its life retaineth,

Still must mine, though bleeding, beat; And the undying thought which paineth Is-that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widow'd bed.

And when thou wouldst solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say "Father!"
Though his care she must forego?
When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press'd,
Think of him whose prayer shall bless
thee,

Think of him thy love had bless'd!

Should her lineaments resemble
Those thou never more may'st see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken;

Pride, which not a world could bow, Bows to thee-by thee forsaken, Even my soul forsakes me now:

But 't is done-all words are idle

Words from me are vainer still; But the thoughts we cannot bridle Force their way without the will.

Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!

Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,

And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,

Still must I on; for I am as a weed, Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam to sail

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

In my youth's summer I did sing of One, The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;

Again I seize the theme, then but begun, And bear it with me, as the rushing wind

Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find

The furrows of long thought, and driedup tears,

Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,

O'er which all heavily the journeying

"T is to create, and in creating live A being more intense that we endow With form our fancy, gaining as we give The life we image, even as I do now. What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou,

Soul of my thought! with whom I traverse earth,

Invisible but gazing, as I glow Mix'd with thy spirit, blended with thy birth,

And feeling still with thee in my crush'd feelings' dearth.

Yet must I think less wildly ;-I have thought

Too long and darkly, till my brain be

came,

In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame: And thus, untaught in youth my heart to tame,

My springs of life were poison'd. "T is too late!

Yet am I changed; though still enough

the same

In strength to bear what time cannot abate,

And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate.

Something too much of this :-but now 't is past,

And the spell closes with its silent seal. Long absent HAROLD re-appears at last; He of the breast which fain no more would feel,

Wrung with the wounds which kill not but ne'er heal;

Yet Time, who changes all, had alter'd him

In soul and aspect as in age: years steal Fire from the mind as vigor from the limb;

And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim.

Which pined although it spoke not, and grew keen,

Entering with every step he took through many a scene.

Secure in guarded coldness, he had mix'd Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deem'd his spirit now so firmly fix'd And sheath'd with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurk'd behind; And he, as one, might 'midst the many stand

Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find

Fit speculation; such as in strange land He found in wonder-works of God and Nature's hand.

But who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek

To wear it? who can curiously behold The smoothness and the sheen of beauty's cheek,

Nor feel the heart can never all grow old?

Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold

The star which rises o'er her steep, nor climb ?

Harold, once more within the vortex, roll'd

On with the giddy circle, chasing Time, Yet with a nobler aim than in his youth's fond prime.

But soon he knew himself the most unfit Of men to herd with Man; with whom he held

Little in common; untaught to submit His thoughts to others, though his soul was quell'd

In youth by his own thoughts; still uncompell'd,

He would not yield dominion of his mind

To spirits against whom his own rebell'd; Proud though in desolation; which

could find

A life within itself, to breathe without mankind.

Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;

Where roll'd the ocean, thereon was his home;

Where a blue sky, and glowing clime. extends,

He had the passion and the power to

roam:

And the deep thunder peal on peal afar ; And near, the beat of the alarming drum

Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;

While throng'd the citizens with terror dumb,

Or whispering, with white lips-"The foe, they come! they come ! "

And wild and high the "Cameron's gathering" rose!

The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills

Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:

How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,

Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills

Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers

With the fierce native daring which instils

The stirring memory of a thousand

years,

And Evan's, Donald's fame rings in each clansman's ears!