To lone lake that smiles, In its dream of deep rest, That enjewel its breast, Have mingled their shade, Full many a maid; Some have left the cool glade, and On moorland and lea Go breathe on their slumber, All softly in ear, The musical number They slumber'd to hear: For what can awaken An angel so soon, Whose sleep hath been taken * The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be moonlight. The rhyme in this verse, as in one about sixty lines before, has an appearance of affectation. It is, however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or rather from Claud Halcro, in whose mouth I admired its effect: "Oh, were there an island, Though ever so wild, Where woman might smile, and No man be beguiled," &c. As the spell which no slumber Of witchery may test, The rhythmical number Which lull'd him to rest?" Spirits in wing, and angels to the view, A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean through, That Truth is Falsehood, or that Bliss is Woe? With the last ecstasy of satiate life; Beyond that death no immortality, But sleep that pondereth, and is not "to be" And there-oh, may my weary spirit dwell! Apart from heaven's Eternity-and yet how far from hell!* What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim, * With the Arabians there is a medium between heaven and hell, where men suffer no punishment, but yet do not But two they fell-for Heaven no grace imparts Oh! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over) moan."* He was a goodly spirit, he who fell : attain that tranquil and even happiness which they suppose to be characteristic of heavenly enjoyment. "Un no rompido sueno Un dia puro-allegre-libre Libre de amor de zelo De odio de esperanza-de rezelo." LUIS PONCE DE LEON. Sorrow is not excluded from "Al Aaraaf," but it is that sorrow which the living love to cherish for the dead, and which, in some minds, resembles the delirium of opium. The passionate excitement of love and the buoyancy of spirit attendant upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures, the price of which, to those souls who make choice of Al Aaraaf as their residence after life, is final death and annihilation. "There be tears of perfect moan * Wept for thee in Helicon."-MILTON. And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie. It trembled to the orb of EARTH again. 66 Ianthe, dearest, see! how dim that ray! She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve But, oh, that light!-I slumber'd. Death the while Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle, So softly that no single silken hair Awoke that slept, or knew that he was there. |