Nothing as of old engrossed him;
And the promptings of his friend
Fell upon his sated spirit,
Not to guide him, but offend.
Daily grew the chilling coolness,
Till, ere many months had flown,
Ernest shut his door upon him,
And resolved to live alone:
And retreating 'mid his splendor
Rooted out all love he bore
For that friend, so true, so noble,
Banished, lost for evermore.
Scarcely had that friend departed,
Pained and pensive, but resigned,
When another sought the palace,
More accordant to his mind.
He in Ernest's lordly chambers
Sat, and called him first of men;
Praised his pictures and his statues,
Flattered him with tongue and pen;
Pressed the milk of human kindness
From his bosom cold and sere,
Taught him to be harsh and cruel,
Proud, disdainful, and austere ;
Filled him up with vain inflation,
And contempt for meaner clay,
As if he were born to govern,
It to flatter and obey.
Sometimes on his lonely pillow,
When his conscience showed the truth,
THE OUT-COMER AND THE IN-GOER.
He deplored his blind estrangement
From the comrade of his youth;
But the daylight chilled the current
Of that feeling, and it froze
Hard enough to bear the burden
Of such memories as those.
And all day, in gloomy grandeur,
In his corridors and halls,
Looking at his old escutcheons,
And the portraits on the walls,
He and his companion wandered,
Calm of eye, with lips upcurled,
Aliens to the worth and goodness,
And the beauty of the world.
Wintry winds of human anguish,
Blowing round them day and night,
Never moved them never clouded
Their serenity of light.
They were made of choice material,
Tempest-proof, from lightning free,
And the world, its joys and sorrows,
Was to them a shipless sea,
Dark, unfathomable, trackless,
Far beyond their care or ken,
Save at times, when ostentation
Brought them to the gaze of men;
But ev'n this was painful to them:
Man was cold, and earth was wide; -
They preferred the warm seclusion
Of their apathy and pride.
Who was he, the first out-goer?
He was HUMAN SYMPATHY;
And the in-comer that displaced him?
He was WORLDLY VANITY.
With the first Religion vanished,
Charity, and Faith in Man,
And the genial Love of Nature,
Boundless as Creation's plan.
With the second entered Hatred,
Harsh Intolerance, and Scorn:
Ernest in his life's cold evening
Saw the error of his morn
Saw his error and deplored it,
And upon his death-bed lain,
Prayed for mercy, while confessing,
Dying, he had lived in vain.
THE MESMERIST AND THE CLAIRVOYANTE.
How dost travel, Imogen,
When the trance upon thee lies?
Lo! I shed the influence o'er thee·
How dost travel to the skies?
'On a wonder working steed,
Like the steed in the eastern tale;
I mount his back—I try his speed —
I guide him over hill and dale,
Deftly ever I hold the reins,
And sit in the saddle haughtily;
Over the mountains and over the plains,
Over the land and over the sea.'
Imogen, I know thou wanderest
At thy pleasure through the air;
Canst thou tell what thou hast witnessed, And thy mysteries declare?
I feast on the beauty of the earth,
In its sadness, in its mirth,
In its decay, and in its bloom,
In its splendor, in its gloom;
Το every clime remote or near
I soar in my saddle and never fear.
Want, and ignorance and strife,
And the agonies of death and life;
Intemperance mowing its victims down
In countless hosts through city and town;
And hapless infants, newly born,
Cast on the world to shame and scorn:
Taught to lie, to steal, to swear,
Nurtured in hatred and despair,
Trained in obedience, reckless, and blind
To the worst passions of their kind.
• Much I see
Indignantly,
The prosperous evil, the suffering good;
And battening, fattening,
Fawning, lying,
God denying,
Pestilent ingratitude.
Sons bringing shame to a father's cheek, And daughter's doing their mothers wrong; The strong man trampling on the weak, The weak man worshipping the strong;
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