Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/300

262 And melancholy gift high Powers allow

To read the future: and if now my fire

Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive!

I but foretell thy fortunes—then expire;

Think not that I would look on them and live.

A Spirit forces me to see and speak,

And for my guerdon grants not to survive;

My Heart shall be poured over thee and break:

Yet for a moment, ere I must resume

Thy sable web of Sorrow, let me take

Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom

A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night,

And many meteors, and above thy tomb

Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight:

And from thine ashes boundless Spirits rise

To give thee honour, and the earth delight;

Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise,

The gay, the learned, the generous, and the brave,

Native to thee as Summer to thy skies,

Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,

Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;