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

for bars,

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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."T'is 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

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
A portion of ourselves as of our time,
And look like heralds of eternity;
They pass like spirits of the past,- they
speak

Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men

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 eyc 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

ceased

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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 sca 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

Of a time-honour'd race.-It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not-and why?

when

Time taught him a deep answer
she loved
Another; even now she loved another,
And on the summit of that hill she stood
Looking afar if yet her lover's steed
Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew.

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

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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.

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Couch'd among fallen columns, in the shade Of ruin'd walls that had survived the names Of those who rear'd them; by his sleeping side Stood camels grazing, and some goodly steeds

Were fasten'd near a fountain; and a man Clad in a flowing garb did watch the while, While many of his tribe slumber'd around: 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. 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 recl'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,

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And her who was his destiny, came back | The beings which surrounded him were gone, And thrust themselves between him and the

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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

many men,

And made him friends of mountains: with

the stars

And the quick Spirit of the Universe
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.

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.

DARKNESS.

I HAD a dream, which was not all a dream. | Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the

stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;

Morn

came, and went and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light: And they did live by watchfires-and the thrones,

The palaces of crowned kings-the huts, The habitations of all things which dwell, Were burnt for beacons; cities were consumed,

And men were gathered round their blazing

homes To look once more into each other's face; Happy were those who dwelt within the eye Of the volcanos and their mountain-torch: A fearful hope was all the world contain'd; Forests were set on fire-but hour by hour They fell and faded-and the crackling

trunks

Extinguish'd with a crash-and all was

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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 each sate sullenly apart Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left; All carth 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 Each other's aspects-saw, and shriek'd, and died—

flesh;

The meagre by the meagre were devoured,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them,or the dropping dead
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

Even of their mutual hideousness they died, Unknowing who he was upon whose brow Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,

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; & they dropp'd They slept on the abyss without a surgeThe 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

Of aid from them --She was the universe.

PROMETHEUS.

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

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

blazed

The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name
no clearer than the names
unknown
Which lay unread around it; and I ask'd
TheGardener of that ground, why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory
task'd

Through the thick deaths of half a century;
And thus he answered-“Well, I do not

know

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

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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

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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.

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