He bade the stern contention cease,
And then he pass'd away:

But still in ruin always great,

The mark of boundless love and hate

And reverence and dismay
And pity; -on his distant rock
Mankind's perpetual gazing-stock.

How oft;

VI.

as some poor shipwreck'd man,

Mid ocean's raging swell,

With straining eyeballs tries to scan
The life-preserving sail;-

He trac'd in vain that rock-bound coast,
And when he knew that all was lost,
What shades of black despair

In horror o'er his spirit fell!
How oft in Memory's bitter well
He strove to drown his care,

And still at every fresh design
Left incomplete the attempted line!

How often,

VII.

as with downcast eyes

And folded arms he stood,

When sunset stain'd with golden dyes

The vast Atlantic flood:

Before his thought would Fancy raise
A dream of other glorious days,

Of tents extending fair,

The flashing steel, the countless host,

The glittering banners, wildly tost

Upon the troubled air,

The vollied charge,

the maddening cry

Of onset and of victory!

VIII.

Ah! then he felt his fatal lapse
From that resplendent show
To his rock-prison, and, perhaps,

Had sunk beneath the blow:
But from above into his soul
A gracious voice of comfort stole,
And told him of the bliss

Of other worlds, by Heaven design'd
To welcome the Immortal Mind,

That takes its leave of this;

Bright worlds, beside whose beaming face Our glories are but nothingness.

IX.

Faith, saving Faith, the ever-blest,

Upon the record-roll

Of her achievements then impress'd

The noblest of the whole :

For never yet did prouder knee,
Before the Man of Cavalry

In homage touch the sod.

Then breathe not o'er his lowly tomb
A lisp of hate or wrath to come,

But leave him to his God,

Who deign'd a holy calm to shed
Upon the soldier's dying bed.

ENIGMA.

[Democratic Review, October, 1837.]

THE lightest and the softest thing That floats upon the zephyr's wing, I move, with unresisting ease, Before the breath of every breeze.

With power resistless and sublime,
I sweep along from clime to clime,
And I defy all earthly force
To intercept me in my course.

A favorite guest with all the fair,
I play with Beauty's twisted hair;
And harmless as the gentle dove,
I share the couch of happy love.

'Tis mine to hurl the bolts of fate, That overwhelm the guilty great; I wield the giant arm that brings Dismay and death on tyrant kings.

No throb of passion ever press'd The vacant chambers of my breast; And no desire nor dream of care Could ever gain admittance there.

With passion's various fires I burn;
And all, as each prevails in turn,
With equal rage incessant roll
Their boiling currents through my soul.

In Folly's lap I had my birth,
The simplest creature on the earth;
At Folly's bosom I was nurs'd,
And am as simple as at first.

The wisest own that I am wiser,
And sages make me their adviser;
The great demand my prudent cares,
To aid them in their state affairs.

I boast but little outward grace,
For frequent stains deform my face;
And when I bathe, though strange it seems,
I seek from choice the foulest streams.

I soar to fields of liquid light,

Where rainbows glow and stars are bright; I sun me at their spotless fires,

And sport amid the heavenly choirs.

The nameless being of a day,
I barely am, and pass away;
Nor leave a trace behind, to be
The record of my history.

No chance or change has power enough
To harm my life's perennial stuff;
For I have built my throne sublime
Upon the wreck of conquer'd Time.

THE DIRGE OF LARRA.

(Boston Miscellany, January, 1842.]

IMITATED FROM THE SPANISH OF ZORRILLA.

It was a dark evening in the month of February. A funeral car passed slowly through the streets of Madrid, followed by a long procession, composed chiefly of the most intelligent and highly educated young men of the capital of Spain. On the car was a coffin containing the remains of Larra. His friends had placed upon the cover a garland composed of laurel interwoven with cypress. It was one of the few occasions, which have occurred in Spain within our time, when a public homage has been offered to merely literary and poetical talent, unaided by the outward advantages of rank and fortune.

Don José Mariano de Larra had been, for several years preceding, the most distinguished of the living poets of Spain. His career was arrested by an unfortunate attachment. The lady of his love, after lending for some time a favorable ear to his vows, with a fickleness not unnatural to the sex, changed her purpose, and insisted on breaking off the connexion. After using every effort to dissuade her from this determination, Larra, at the end of a long conversation on the subject, swore, in the passionate excitement of the moment, that he would not survive the separation, and that the hour in which she should finally announce it to him, should be the last of his existence. 'You have then but a short time left for repentance,' replied the lady, perhaps considering the desperate words of Larra as mere bravado, 'for I assure you, whatever the results may be, that, with my consent, we shall never meet again.' Larra retired from her presence, and within a few minutes she heard the report of the pistol-shot that terminated his life.

The procession took its melancholy way through the streets of Madrid to the cemetery near the Fuencarral Gate, where a niche had been prepared by a friendly hand for the remains of the dead. A numerous concourse filled the place, and the fast retiring twilight threw a gray and gloomy color upon the bones that paved the floor, the inscriptions that covered the walls, and the faces of the assistants. After the funeral ceremonies were over, a friend of the deceased, Señor Roca de Togores, pronounced a eulogy, in which he sketched with the eloquence of kindred