HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.

I.

Oh! Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding;

Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding.

Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading!
Ab, could'st thou-thou would'st pardon now,
Though heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

And is she dead ?and did they dare
Obey my phrenzy's jealous raving?

My wrath but doomed my own despair:

The sword that smote her's o'er me waving.—

But thou art cold, my murdered love!

And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

III.

She's

gone, who shared my diadem :

She sunk, with her my joys emtombing; I swept that flower from Judah's stem

Whose leaves for me alone were blooming.
And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell,

This bosom's desolation dooming;
And I have earned those tortures well,
Which unconsumed are still consuming!

Byron.

THE TOO EARLY OPENING FLOWER.

Not yet, frail flower! thy charms unclose;
Too soon thou venturest forth again;
For April has its winter-rain,
And tempest-clouds and nipping snows.
Too quickly thou uprear'st thy head;

The northern wind may reach thee still,
And injure-nay, for ever kill

Thy charming white and lovely red.
And thou perchance too late will sigh,

That at the first approach of spring,
Thou madest thy bud unfold its wing,
And show its blush to every eye;

For March a faithless smile discloses.
If thou wouldst bloom securely here.
Let Phoebus first o'ertake the steer:
Thou'rt like the seaman, who reposes
On one fair day-one favouring wind,
Weighs anchor, and the future braves :..
But sighs, when on the ocean waves,
For that calm port he leaves behind,
As with an anxious eye he sees

His shattered hull and shivered sail
Borne at the mercy of the gale,
Wherever winds and waters please;
And deems, as he is sinking fast,

The sands and brine and foam beneath, That every wave contains a death, That every plunge will be his last. Thou'rt like the courtier, who, elate

When greeted first by favour's ray, Begins to make a grand display But, ah! it is a fickle state.

A court is like a garden-shade;

The courtiers and the flowers that rise Too suddenly 'neath changeful skies, Oft sink into the dust and fade."

In short, we all are like thy flower,

And ever, both in weal and woe,
With strange perverseness we bestow
Our thoughts on time's swift-fleeting hour.
And 'tis the same with those who pine,
And deem that grief will never flee,
And those who, bred in luxury,
Think the gay sun will always shine
For every joy brings sorrow too,

And even grief may herald mirth;
And God has mingled life on earth
With bitterness and honey-dew.
Thus winter follows summer's bloom,

And verdant summer winter's blight; Thus reign by turns the day and night;~-~ Change is the universal doom.

Then floweret! when thy charms have fled,

All withered by a fate unkind,

Call wisdom's proverb to thy mind

Soon green, soon gray,-soon ripe, soon dead.

Bowring.

Aye-down to the dust with them, slaves as they are—
From this hour, let the blood in their dastardly veins,
That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty's war,
Be sucked out by tyrants, or stagnate in chains !

On, on, like a cloud, through their beautiful vales,
Ye locusts of tyranny, blasting them o'er

Fill, fill up their wide sunny waters, ye sails,
From each slave-mart of Europe, and poison their shore-

May their fate be a mock-word-may men of all lands
Laugh out, with a scorn that shall ring to the poles,
When each sword, that the cowards let fall from their hands,
Shall be forged into fetters to enter their souls!

And deep, and more deep, as the iron is driven,
Base slaves! may the whet of their agony be
To think- -as the damned haply think of that heaven

They had once in their reach-that they might have been

free!