So thou hast writ the word, and sign'd thy doom: Farewell, and pass upon thy gory way, The direful skein the pausing Fates resume! Let not the Elysian grove thy steps delay From thy Promethean goal. The fatal tree the abhorrent word retain'd, Till the last Battle on its bloody strand Flung what were nobler had no life remain'd,-- The crownless front and the disarmed hand And the' foil'd Titan Soul; IX. Now, year by year, the warrior's iron mark Crumbles away from the majestic tree, The indignant life-sap ebbing from the bark Where the grim death-word to Humanity Profaned the Lord of Day. High o'er the pomp of blooms, as greenly still, Aspires that tree--the Archetype of Fame, The stem rejects all chronicle of ill; The bark shrinks back--the _tree_ survives the same-- The _record_ rots away. BAVENO, Oct. 8, 1845. The Parcae.----Leaf the Second. MAZARIN. FAREWELL TO THE BEAUTIFUL, WITHOUT. "I was walking, some days after, in the new apartments of his palace. I recognized the approach of the cardinal (Mazaria) by the sound of his slippered feet, which he dragged one after the other, as a man enfeebled by a mortal malady. I concealed myself behind the tapestry, and I heard him say, 'Il faut quitter tout cela!' ('I must leave all that!') He stopped at every step, for he was very feeble, and casting his eyes on each object that attracted him, he sighed forth, as from the bottom of his heart, 'II faut quitter tout cela! What pains have I taken to acquire these things! Can I abandon them without regret? I shall never see them more where I am about to go!'" &c.--MEMOIRES INEDITS DE LOUIS HENRI, COMTE DE BRIENNE, _Barriere's Edition_, vol. ii. p. 115. Serene the Marble Images Gleam'd down, in lengthen'd rows; Their life, like the Uranides, A glory and repose. Glow'd forth the costly canvas spoil From many a gorgeous frame; One race will starve the living toil, The next will gild the name. That stately silence silvering through, The steadfast tapers shone Upon the Painter's pomp of hue, The Sculptor's solemn stone. Saved from the deluge-storm of Time, Within that ark, survey Whate'er of elder Art sublime Survives a world's decay! There creeps a foot, there sighs a breath, Along the quiet floor; An old man leaves his bed of death To count his treasures o'er. Behold the dying mortal glide Amidst the eternal Art; It were a sight to stir with pride Some pining Painter's heart! It were a sight that might beguile Sad Genius from the Hour, To see the life of Genius smile Upon the death of Power. The ghost-like master of that hall Is king-like in the land; And France's proudest heads could fall Beneath that spectre hand.