THE ETRURIAN KING. [See Mrs. Hamilton Gray’s “Visit to the Sepulchres of Etruria.”]

One only eye beheld him in his pride, The old Etrurian monarch, as he, died; II. And as they laid him on his bier of stone, Shield, spear, and arrows laying at his side; III. In golden armour with his crown of gold, One only eye the kingly warrior spied; IV. Nor that eye long—for in the common air The wondrous pageant might not now abide, V. Which had in sealèd sepulchre the wrongs Of time for thirty centuries defied. VI. That eye beheld it melt and disappear, As down an hour-glass the last sand-drops glide. VII. A few short moments,—and a shrunken heap Of common dust survived, of all that pride: VIII. And so that gorgeous vision has remained For evermore to other eye denied: IX. And he who saw must oftentimes believe That him his waking senses had belied, X. Since what if all the pageants of the earth Melt soon away, and may not long abide, XI. Yet when did ever doom so swift before Even to the glories of the earth betide?