cas, mountains, and the horizon's verge | Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass

for bars,

The limits of man's common malice, for All that a citizen could be I was; Raised by thy will,all thine in peace or war, And for this thou hast warr'd with me.— 'Tis done:

I may not overleap the eternal bar Built up between us, and will die alone, Beholding, with the dark eye of a seer, The evil days to gifted souls foreshown, Foretelling them to those who will not hear, As in the old time, till the hour be come When Truth shall strike their eyes through many a tear, And make them own the Prophet in his tomb.

THE DREAM.

Our life is twofold; Sleep hath its own | But a most living landscape, and the wave Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men

world,

A boundary between the things misnamed
Death and existence: Sleep hath its own
world,

And a wide realm of wild reality;
And dreams in their development have
breath,

And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking
thoughts

They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being; they become
■ portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past, they
speak

Scattered at intervals, and wreathing smoke
Arising from such rustic roofs; the hill
Was crown'd with a peculiar diadem
Of trees, in circular array, so fix'd,
Not by the sport of nature, but of man:
These two, a maiden and a youth, were there
Gazing-the one on all that was beneath
Fair as herself-but the boy gazed on her;
And both were young, and one was beautiful:
And both were young - yet not alike in
youth.

As the sweet moon on the horizon's verge
The maid was on the eve of womanhood;
The boy had fewer summers, but his heart
Like sibyls of the future; they have power-Had far outgrown his years, and to his eye
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain;
They make us what we were not-what
they will,

And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows Are they so?
Is not the past all shadow? What are they?
Creation of the mind?—The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and
give

A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recal a vision which I dream'd
Perchance in sleep-for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

There was but one beloved face on earth,
And that was shining on him ; he had look’d
Upon it till it could not pass away;
He had no breath, no being, but in hers,
She was his voice; he did not speak to her,
But trembled on her words; she was his
sight,

For his eye follow'd hers, and saw with hers,
Which colour'd all his objects:—he had

I saw two beings in the hues of youth Unknowing of its cause of agony. Standing upon a hill, a gentle hill, But she in these fond feelings had no share : Green and of mild declivity, the last Her sighs were not for him; to her he was As 'twere the cape of a long ridge of such, Even as a brother but no more; 'twas much, Save that there was no sea to lave its base,For brotherless she was, save in the name

Her infant-friendship had bestow'd on him; | Reposing from the noon-tide sultriness,
Herself the solitary scion left
Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade
Of a time-honour'd race.-It was a name Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names
Which pleased him, and yet pleased him Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping
not-and why?
side
Time taught him a deep answer when Stood camels grazing, and some goodly
she loved
steeds
Another; even now she loved another, Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man
And on the summit of that hill she stood Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while,
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed While many of his tribe slumber'd around:
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew. And they were canopied by the blue sky,
So cloudless, clear, and purely beautiful,
That God alone was to be seen in Heaven.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
There was an ancient mansion, and before
Its walls there was a steed caparison'd:
Within an antique Oratory stood
The Boy of whom I spake;- he was alone
And pale, and pacing to and fro; anon
He sate him down, and seized a pen, and
traced
Words which I could not guess of; then
he lean'd
His bow'd head on his hands, and shook as
'twere
With a convulsion-then arose again,
And with his teeth and quivering hands
did tear
What he had written, but he shed no tears,
And he did calm himself, and fix his brow
Into a kind of quiet; as he paused,
The Lady of his love re-entered there;
She was serene and smiling then, and yet
She knew she was by him beloved,—she
knew,
For quickly comes such knowledge, that

his heart
Was darken'd with her shadow, and she saw
That he was wretched, but she saw not all.
He rose, and with a cold and gentle grasp
He took her hand; a moment o'er his face
A tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came;
He dropped the hand he held. and with
slow steps
Retired, but not as bidding her adieu,
For they did part with mutual smiles: he
pass'd

From out the massy gate of that old Hall,
And mounting on his steed he went his way;
And ne'er repass'd that hoary threshold more.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Boy was sprung to manhood: in the

wilds

Of fiery climes he made himself a home,
And his soul drank their sunbeams; he was
girt
With strange and dusky aspects; he was not
Himself like what he had been; on the sea
And on the shore he was a wanderer;
There was a mass of many images
Crowded like waves upon me, but he was
A part of all; and in the last he lay

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Lady of his love was wed with One Who did not love her better:-in her home A thousand leagues from his,- her native home,

She dwelt, begirt with growing Infancy.
Daughters and sons of Beauty, but behold!
Upon her face there was the tint of grief,
The settled shadow of an inward strife,
And an unquiet drooping of the eye
As if its lid were charged with unshed tears.
What could her grief be? - she had all she
loved,

And he who had so loved her was not there
To trouble with bad hopes, or evil wish,
Or ill-repress'd affliction,her pure thoughts.
What could her grief be? - she had loved
him not,
Nor given him cause to deem himself
beloved,
Nor could he be a part of that which prey'd
Upon her mind —a spectre of the past.

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was return'd.- I saw him stand Before an Altar-with a gentle bride; Her face was fair, but was not that which made

The Starlight of his Boyhood ;—as he stood
Even at the altar, o'er his brow there came
The selfsame aspect, and the quivering shock
That in the antique Oratory shook
His bosom in its solitude; and then-
As in that hour-a moment o'er his face
The tablet of unutterable thoughts
Was traced, and then it faded, as it came,
And he stood calm and quiet, and he spoke
The fitting vows, but heard not his own
words,
And all things reel'd around him; he

could see
Not that which was, nor that which should
have been -
But the old mansion,and the accustom'd hall,
And the remember'd chambers, and the place,
The day, the hour, the sunshine, and the
shade,
All things pertaining to that place and hour.

And her who was his destiny, came back | The beings which surrounded him were gone,
And thrust themselves between him and the
light:
What business had they there at such a time?

Or were at war with him; he was a mark
For blight and desolation, compass'd round
With Hatred and Contention; Pain was mix'd
In all which was served up to him, until
Like to the Pontic monarch of old days,
He fed on poisons, and they had no power,

But were a kind of nutriment; he lived

Through that which had been death to

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream.
The Lady of his love;-Oh! she was changed
As by the sickness of the soul; her mind
Had wander'd from its dwelling, and her eyes
They had not their own lustre, but the look
Which is not of the earth; she was become
The queen of a fantastic realm; her thoughts
Were combinations of disjointed things;
And forms impalpable and unperceived
Of others' sight familiar were to hers.
And this the world calls phrensy; but the

wise

Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;
What is it but the telescope of truth?
Which strips the distance of its phantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the cold reality too real!

A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The Wanderer was alone as heretofore,

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the

stars

DARKNESS.

many men, And made him friends of mountains: with And the quick Spirit of the Universe

the stars

He held his dialogues; and they did teach
To him the magic of their mysteries;
To him the book of Night was open'd wide,
And voices from the deep abyss reveal'd
A marvel and a secret—Be it so.

trunks

Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was

black.

The brows of men by the despairing light

My dream was past; it had no further change. It was of a strange order, that the doom Of these two creatures should be thus traced out Almost like a reality-the one To end in madness-both in misery.

Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some
did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and
smiled;

And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and looked up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild
birds shriek'd,
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest
brutes

Came tame and tremulous; and vipers

crawl'd

And twined themselves among the multitude, Hissing, but stingless-they were slain for food:

And War, which for a moment was no

more,

Did glut himself again; a meal was bought
With blood, and cach sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought- and that
was death,
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails; men

Died, and their bones were tombless as their | Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
flesh;
Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd,
The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
and died—
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one, Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
And he was faithful to a corse and kept Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay, Famine had written Fiend. The world was
Till hunger clung them,or the dropping dead
void,
Lured their lank jaws; himself sought out
no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan
And a quick desolate cry licking the hand
Which answered not with a caress - he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies; they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy
things

For an unholy usage; they raked up,
And shivering scraped with their cold ske-
leton-hands

The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame

Which was a mockery; then they lifted up ❘ Of aid from them--She was the universe.

PROMETHEU S.

TITAN! to whose immortal eyes
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,

The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless,lifeless,
A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirred within their silent
depths;

Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal; as
they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge-
The waves were dead; the tides were in
their grave,

The moon their mistress had expired before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no
need

Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,

Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.

Titan! to thee the strife was given

Between the suffering and the will,
Which torture where they cannot kill;
And the inexorable Heaven,
And the deaf tyranny of Fate,
The ruling principle of Hate,
Which for its pleasure doth create
The things it may annihilate,
Refused thee even the boon to die:
The wretched gift eternity

Was thine and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee
Was but the menace which flung back
On him the torments of thy rack 3
The fate thou didst so well foresce,
But wouldst not to appease him tell:

And in thy Silence was his Sentence,
And in his Soul a vain repentance,
And evil dread so ill dissembled
That in his hand the lightnings trembled

Thy godlike crime was to be kind,

To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness,
And strengthen Man with his own mind;
But baffled as thou wert from high,
Still in thy patient energy,
In the endurance, and repulse
Of thine impenetrable Spirit,
Which Earth and Heaven could not con-
vulse,

A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign

To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,

A troubled stream from a pure source,
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself-an equal to all woes,

And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry

Its own concentred recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.

CHURCHILL'S GRAVE,

A FACT LITERALLY RENDERED.

I STOOD beside the grave of him who Were it not that all life must end in one,

Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrimsso;
He died before my day of Sextonship,
And I had not the digging of this grave."
And is this all? I thought, and do we rip
The veil of Immortality? and crave

I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon and so successless? As I said,
The Architect of all on which we tread,
For Earth is but a tombstone, did essay
To extricate remembrance from the clay,
Whose minglings might confuse a Newton's

thought

Of which we are but dreamers;- as he caught

As 'twere the twilight of a former Sun,
Thus spoke he: "I believe the man of
whom

You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their
way

To pay him honour, and myself whate'er
Your honour pleases," then most pleased
I shook
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
Some certain coins of silver, which as
'twere

Perforce I gave this man, though I could

spare

So much but inconveniently;-Ye smile,
I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,
Because my homely phrase the truth would
tell.

You are the fools, not I-for I did dwell
With a deep thought, and with a soft-
en'd eye,

On that Old Sexton's natural homily,
In which there was Obscurity and Fame,
The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.

MONODY

ON THE

DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. R. B. SHERIDAN.

SPOKEN AT DRURY-LANE THEATRE.

WHEN the last sunshine of expiring day | A holy concord—and a bright regret, In summer's twilight weeps itself away, A glorious sympathy with suns that set? Who hath not felt the softness of the hour Tis not harsh sorrow-but a tenderer woe, Sink on the heart, as dew along the flower? With a pure feeling which absorbs and awes While Nature makes that melancholy pause, Her breathing-moment on the bridge where

Nameless, but dear to gentle hearts below,
Felt without bitterness - but full and clear,
A sweet dejection-a transparent tear
Unmix'd with worldly grief or selfish stain,
Shed without shame-and secret without
pain.

Even as the tenderness that hour instils
When Summer's day declines along the hills,
So feels the fulness of our heart and eyes
When all of Genius which can perish dies.