His mother's image in fair face,

The infant love of all his race,
His martyred father's dearest thought,
My latest care, for whom I sought
To hoard my life, that his might be
Less wretched now, and one day free;
He, too, who yet had held untired
A spirit natural or inspired-

He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was withered on the stalk away.

Oh God! it is a fearful thing

To see the human soul take wing
In any shape, in any mood:-

I've seen it rushing forth in blood,

I've seen it on the breaking ocean

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180

Strive with a swoln convulsive motion,

I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of Sin delirious with its dread:

But these were horrors-this was woe
Unmix'd with such-but sure and slow:
He faded, and so calm and meek,

So softly worn, so sweetly weak,

So tearless, yet so tender-kind,

And grieved for those he left behind;

With all the while a cheek whose bloom

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Was as a mockery of the tomb,

Whose tints as gently sunk away

As a departing rainbow's ray

An eye of most transparent light,

That almost made the dungeon bright,

And not a word of murmur-not

A groan o'er his untimely lot,

A little talk of better days,

A little hope my own to raise,

For I was sunk in silence-lost

200

In this last loss, of all the most;

And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature's feebleness,

More slowly drawn, grew less and less :
I listened, but I could not hear—

I called, for I was wild with fear;

I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread
Would not be thus admonished;

I called, and thought I heard a sound-
I burst my chain with one strong bound,
And rush'd to him :-I found him not,

I only stirr'd in this black spot,
I only lived-I only drew

The accursed breath of dungeon-dew;

The last-the sole-the dearest link

Between me and the eternal brink,
Which bound me to my failing race,
Was broken in this fatal place.

One on the earth, and one beneath

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My brothers-both had ceased to breathe: 220

I took that hand which lay so still,
Alas! my own was full as chill;
I had not strength to stir, or strive,
But felt that I was still alive-

A frantic feeling, when we know
That what we love shall ne'er be so.

I know not why

I could not die,

I had no earthly hope-but faith,

And that forbade a selfish death.

IX.

What next befell me then and there

I know not well-I never knew

First came the loss of light, and air,

And then of darkness too:

VOL. VI.

230

I had no thought, no feeling-none-
Among the stones I stood a stone,
And was, scarce conscious what I wist,
As shrubless crags within the mist;
For all was blank, and bleak, and grey,
It was not night-it was not day,
It was not even the dungeon-light,

So hateful to my heavy sight,

But vacancy absorbing space,

And fixedness-without a place;

There were no stars-no earth-no time

No check-no change-no good-no crime

But silence, and a stirless breath

Which neither was of life nor death;

A sea of stagnant idleness,

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Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless!

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