152

ODE ON THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

Round us, each with different powers,

And other forms of life than ours,

What know we greater than the soul?

On God and Godlike men we build our trust.
Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears :

The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears:
The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears;
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;

He is gone who seem'd so great.

Gone; but nothing can bereave him

Of the force he made his own

Being here, and we believe him

Something far advanced in State,

And that he wears a truer crown

Than any wreath that man can weave him.

Speak no more of his renown,

Lay your earthly fancies down,

And in the vast cathedral leave him.

God accept him, Christ receive him.

1852,

THE DAISY.

WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH.

O LOVE, what hours were thine and mine,

In lands of palm and southern pine;

In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,

Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.

What Roman strength Turbìa show'd

In ruin, by the mountain road;

How like a gem, beneath, the city

Of little Monaco, basking, glow'd.

How richly down the rocky dell
The torrent vineyard streaming fell

To meet the sun and sunny waters,

That only heaved with a summer swell.

What slender campanili grew

By bays, the peacock's neck in hue;

Where, here and there, on sandy beaches

A milky-bell'd amaryllis blew.

How young Columbus seem'd to rove,

Yet present in his natal grove,

Now watching high on mountain cornice,

And steering, now, from a purple cove,

Now pacing mute by ocean's rim

Till, in a narrow street and dim,

I stay'd the wheels at Cogoletto,

And drank, and loyally drank to him.

Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Not the clipt palm of which they boast;

But distant colour, happy hamlet,

A moulder'd citadel on the coast,

Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen

A light amid its olives green;

Or olive-hoary cape in ocean;

Or rosy blossom in hot ravine,

Where oleanders flush'd the bed

Of silent torrents, gravel-spread;

And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten Of ice, far up on a mountain head.

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, Those niched shapes of noble mould,

A princely people's awful princes,

The grave, severe Genovese of old.

At Florence too what golden hours,

In those long galleries, were ours;

What drives about the fresh Cascinè,

Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers.

In bright vignettes, and each complete,

Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet,

Or palace, how the city glitter'd,

Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet.

But when we crost the Lombard plain Remember what a plague of rain;

Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma ;

At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain.

And stern and sad (so rare the smiles

Of sunlight) look'd the Lombard piles;

Porch-pillars on the lion resting,

And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles.