Launch'd with Iberia's pilot from the steep,

To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep!
Or round the cope her living chariot driv'n,

And wheel'd in triumph through the signs of Heav'n?

Oh! star-ey'd Science, hast thou wander'd there,

To waft us home the message of despair?

Then bind the palm, thy sage's brow to suit,
Of blasted leaf, and death-distilling fruit!

Ah me! the laurel'd wreath that murder rears,

Blood-nurs'd, and water'd by the widow's tears,
Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread,

As waves the night-shade round the sceptic head.
What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain?

I smile on death, if heav'n-ward Hope remain!

But, if the warring winds of Nature's strife

Be all the faithless charter of my life,

If Chance awak'd, inexorable power,

This frail and feverish being of an hour;

Doom'd o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep,

Swift as the tempest travels on the deep,

To know delight but by her parting smile,

And toil, and wish, and weep, a little while;
Then melt, ye elements, that form'd in vain
This troubled pulse, and visionary brain!
Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom,

And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb!

Truth, ever lovely-since the world began,

The foe of tyrants, and the friend of

man,

Ilow.can thy words from balmy slumber start,

Reposing Virtue, pillow'd on the heart!

Yet, if thy voice the note of thunder roll'd,
And that were true which Nature never told,

lovely. Since the World began,

The For of Tyrants, and the Friend of Man

Let Wisdom smile not on her conquer'd field;
No rapture dawns, no treasure is reveal'd!
Oh! let her read, nor loudly, nor elate,

The doom that bars us from a better fate;
But, sad as angels for the good man's sin,
Weep to record, and blush to give it in!

And well may Doubt, the mother of Dismay, Pause at her martyr's tomb, and read the lay. Down by the wilds of yon deserted vale,

It darkly hints a melancholy tale!

There, as the homeless madman sits alone,

In hollow winds he hears a spirit moan!

And there, they say, a wizard orgie crowds,

When the Moon lights her watch-tower in the clouds.