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Raze out the written troubles of the brain;
And, with some sweet oblivious antidote,
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

VI. POWER OF IMAGINATION.

THE poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

VII.-DAYBREAK.

NIGHT'S Swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora's harbinger;

At whose approach, ghosts, wandering here and there,
Troop home to churchyards.

VIII. PROVIDENCE.

THERE'S a Divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.

CHORAL HYMN OF THE JEWISH MAIDENS.

KING of kings! and Lord of lords!
Thus we move, our sad steps timing
To our cymbals' feeblest chiming,
Where thy house its rest accords.
Chased and wounded birds are we,
Through the dark air fled to thee;
To the shadow of thy wings,
Lord of lords! and King of kings!

Behold, O Lord, the heathen tread
The branches of thy fruitful vine,
That its luxurious tendrils spread

O'er all the hills of Palestine.

And now the wild boar comes to waste
Even us, the greenest boughs and last,
That, drinking of thy choicest dew,
On Zion's hill in beauty grew.

No! by the marvels of thine hand,
Thou still wilt save thy chosen land;-
By all thine ancient mercies shown,
By all our fathers' foes o'erthrown ;
By the Egyptian's car-borne host,
Scattered on the Red Sea coast;
By that wide and bloodless slaughter
Underneath the drowning water.

Like us, in utter helplessness,
In their last and worst distress-
On the sand and sea-weed lying,
Israel poured her doleful sighing;
While before the deep sea flowed,
And behind fierce Egypt rode-
To their fathers' God they prayed,
To the Lord of Hosts for aid.

On the margin of the flood

With lifted rod the prophet stood;

And the summoned east wind blew,

And aside it sternly threw

The gathered waves, that took their stand,
Like crystal rocks, on either hand;

Or walls of sea-green marble piled
Round some irregular city wild.

Then the light of morning lay
On the wonder-pavèd way,
Where the treasures of the deep
In their caves of coral sleep.
The profound abysses, where
Was never sound from upper air,

Rang with Israel's chanted words,

66

King of kings! and Lord of lords!"

Then with bow and banner glancing,
On exulting Egypt came,
With her chosen horsemen prancing,
And her cars on wheels of flame,

In a rich and boastful ring

All around her furious king.

But the Lord from out his cloud,
The Lord looked down upon the proud;
And the host drave heavily

Down the deep bosom of the sea.

With a quick and sudden swell

Prone the liquid ramparts fell;
Over horse and over car,
Over every man of war,
Over Pharaoh's crown of gold,
The loud thundering billows rolled.
As the level waters spread,

Down they sank, they sank like lead,
Down without a cry or groan.

And the morning sun that shone
On myriads of bright armèd men,

Its meridian radiance then

Cast on a wide sea, heaving as of yore,

Against a silent, solitary shore!

Then did Israel's maidens sing,

Then did Israel's timbrels ring,

To Him, the King of kings! that in the sea, The Lord of lords! had triumphed gloriously. And our timbrels' flashing chords,

King of kings! and Lord of lords!

Shall they not attuned be
Once again to victory?
Lo! a glorious triumph now!

Lo! against thy people come
A mightier Pharaoh! wilt not thou
Craze the chariot-wheels of Rome?
Will not, like the Red Sea wave,

Thy stern anger overthrow,

And from worse than bondage save,
From sadder than Egyptian woe,
Those whose silver cymbals glance,
Those who lead the suppliant dance;—
Thy race, the only race that sings
"Lord of lords! and King of kings!"

MILMAN.

THE CLOUD.

I BRING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid

In their noon-day dreams;

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,

While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;

In a cavern under is fettered the thunder-
It struggles and howls by fits:

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,

Lured by the love of the genii that move

In the depths of the purple sea;

Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,

Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The spirit he loves remains;

And I, all the while, bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,

When the morning-star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,

Which an earthquake rocks and swings,

An eagle, alit, one moment may sit,

In the light of its golden wings.

And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love,

And the crimson pall of eve may fall

From the depth of heaven above,

With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,

As still as a brooding dove.

That orbèd maiden, with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,

Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,

The stars peep behind and peer!

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,

Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl ;

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banners unfurl.

From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,

Over a torrent sea.

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