I.

Lord Arden's tale robb'd Morvale's couch of sleep, The star still trembled on the troubled deep, O'er the waste ocean gleam'd its chilling glance, To make more dark the desolate expanse.

This contrast of a fate, but vex'd by gales Faint with too full a balm from Rhodian Vales;[O] This light of life all squander'd upon one Round whom hearts moved, as planets round a sun, Mocks the lone doom _his_ barren years endure, As wasted treasure but insults the poor. Back on his soul no faithful echoes cast Those tones which make the music of the past. No memories hallow, and no dreams restore Love's lute, far heard from Youth's Hesperian shore;-- The flowers that Arden trampled on the sod, Still left the odour where the step had trod; Those flowers, so wasted!--had for _him_ but smiled One bud,--its breath had perfumed all the wild! He own'd the moral of the reveller's life, So Christian warriors own the sin of strife,-- But, oh! how few can lift the soul above Earth's twin-born rulers,--Fame and Woman's Love!

Just in that time, of all most drear, upon Fate's barren hill-tops, gleam'd the coming sun; From nature's face the veil of night withdrawn, Earth smiled, and Heaven was open'd in the dawn!

How chanced this change?--how chances all below? What sways the life the moment doth bestow: An impulse, instinct, look, touch, word, or sigh-- Unlocks the Hades, or reveals the sky.